^ 


A 


JOHAN    BOJER 

THE  MAN  AND  HIS  WORKS 


!  •  .  •  •     • 


JOHAN  BOJER 


JOHAN    BOJER 

THE  MAN  AND  HIS  WORKS 

BY 

CARL  GAD 

TRANSLATED  FROM  THE  NORWEGIAN   BY 

ELIZABETH   JELLIFFE   MACINTIRE 

With  an  introduction  by 

LLEWELLYN  JONES 

and  critiques  by 

JOHN  GALSWORTHY,  JOSEPH  HERGESHEIMER 

JAMES  BRANCH  CABELL  and  CECIL  ROBERTS 


NEW  YORE 
MOFFAT,  YARD  AND  COMPANY 

1920 


COPYRIGHT,    1920,   BY 
MOFFAT,  YARD  &  COMPANY 


eN©Us*f  f 


PT  Biro 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 


Foreword  by  the  Author 7 

Introduction  by  Llewellyn  Jones     ....      9 

JOHAN  BOJER  AND  KAHLIL  GlBRAN 27 

I.  The  Boyhood  of  Bojer 33 

II.  Social  Criticism 43 

III.  Politics  and  an  Author 65 

IV.  Bojer's  Characters 89 

V.  The  Development  of  Optimism       .     .     .  96 

VI.  Squaring  Accounts  with  Delusions    .     .153 

VII.  Bojer's  Psychology  of  Character  .     .     .173 

VIII.  Literary  Qualities  of  Bojer's  Work  .     .186 

IX.  Light  and  Shadow 198 

Appendix: 

Critique   on    The   Great   Hunger    by    John 

Galsworthy 229 

Critique  on   The  Great  Hunger  by  Joseph 

Hergesheimer    .     . 237 

Critique  on  The  Face  of  the  World  by  James 

Branch  Cabell 247 

Critique   on    Treacherous  Ground   by   Cecil 

Roberts .  256 

Glossary  of  Bojer's   Novels,  Plays,   and 
Short  Stories 261 


457019 


FOREWORD 

BY  CARL  GAD 

JOHAN  BOJER  is  but  forty-five  years  old. 
He  stands  upon  his  own  merits  and  has  at- 
tained a  height  of  fame  such  as  gives  one  the 
right  to  expect  that  the  author  has  still  a  long 
and  productive  period  in  front  of  him.  But 
the  main  features  of  this  author's  work  are  al- 
ready clearly  and  sharply  defined.  From  work 
to  work  one  can  trace  the  consistent  development 
of  his  ideas,  by  means  of  which  his  personality 
achieves  its  definite  and  final  victory.  Through 
bitter  doubt,  through  acrid  criticism  of  false 
valuings,  he  fights  his  way  through  to  a  steadily 
stronger  and  brighter  faith,  until  he  has  gone 
so  far  that,  in  the  midst  of  an  evil  time,  he  has 
the  courage  to  anticipate  the  victory  of  the  good. 
And  if  one  considers  his  writings  in  this  light, 
one  sees  that  they  are  not  merely  a  succession 
of  fine  works  of  literary  art,  but  are  a  positive 
and  profound  contribution  to  the  spiritual  life, 


8  FOREWORD 

giving  expression,  with  firmness,  and,  in  a  dis- 
tinguished manner,  to  a  vision  of  human  experi- 
ence that,  while  bearing  the  impriqt  of  his  age, 
still  definitely  looks  higher. 

An  examination  of  his  theory  of  life,  and 
of  his  artistic  expression,  is  attempted  in  this 
study. 


BOJER'S  WORKS   IN  AMERICA 

BY  LLEWELLYN  JONES 
Literary  Editor  of  the  Chicago  Evening  Post 

THE  series  of  English  translations  of  Johan 
Bojer's  novels,  of  which  The  Power  of  a 
Lie  is  the  fourth,  was  begun  by  Messrs.  Moffat, 
Yard  &  Co.,  with  The  Great  Hunger  in  1919. 
The  Face  of  the  World  followed  in  the  same 
year,  Treacherous  Ground  and  The  Power 
of  a  Lie  were  both  published  early  in  1920,  Life 
announced  for  later  in  the  year,  and  now  this 
biography. 
f  l(  To  my  certain  knowledge  there  has  been 
nothing  parallel  in  the  last  ten  years,  and  I  doubt 
if  ever  a  foreign  author  has  been  acclimatized 
so  quickly,  fl  Some  English  authors  have  made  a 
success  in  this  country  and  then  their  earlier 
works  have  been  given  us  in  "collected"  edi- 
tions, but  that  is  not  a  parallel  case.  Here  is 
an  author  practically  none  of  us  not  of  Nor- 

9 


io  '  '"'      :'  JOHAN    BOJER 

wegian  birth  or  parentage  has  been  able  to  read 
in  the  original,  an  author  of  whom  few  of  us 
had  even  heard.  He  has  had  no  advance  pub- 
licity. One  of  his  books  is  published;  it  is  so 
successful  that  another  is  issued  the  same  year 
—  while  the  sales  of  the  first  go  merrily  on.  A 
third  and  fourth  follow,  and  his  circle  of  readers 
enlarges  steadily.1  He  is  not,  like  Ibanez,  an 
already  fairly  well  known  but  little  read  author 
who  makes  a  hit  by  publishing  a  book  dealing 
with  the  war,  and  then  rides  on  the  wave  of  its 
momentum.  He  is  an  artist  who  deals  with 
the  materials  offered  by  his  native  country, 
and  we  read  his  books  for  no  other  reason  than 
that  they  appeal  to  us  on  their  intrinsic  merits. 
And  yet,  in  two  years,  we  have  so  taken  him  into 
our  hearts  that  biography  is  called  for.  It  is  an 
interest  that  certainly  makes  Bojer  an  Amer- 
ican author  by  adoption.// 

How  is  it?  I  confess  that  the  problem  is 
almost  insoluble  apart  from  what  a  critic  would 
naturally  feel  to  be  the  desperate  admission  that 
the  American  reading  public  is  a  more  intelli- 
gent, more  truly  feeling  creature  than  we  usually 
care  to  suppose. 


INTRODUCTION  n 

For  Bojer  is  at  the  opposite  pole  from  Polly- 
anna,  nor  has  he  a  single  characteristic  in  com- 
mon with  Harold  Bell  Wright.  Nor  for  that 
matter  does  he  quite  compete  with  them  in  point 
of  sales  —  that  would  be  too  much  like  the 
literary  millennium.  But  he  does  compete  in 
point  of  sales  with  a  great  many  of  our  native 
authors  who  are  not  quite  so  saccharine  as  the 
two  above  mentioned  but  who  do  write  in  a  man- 
ner that  is  a  compromise  between  art  and  what 
the  ethically-minded  American  public  believes 
in  reading. 

"  I  think  one  reason  for  this  success  is  the  very 
creditable  way  in  which  American  authors  have 
expressed  their  own  liking  of  Bojer's  work.  Just 
the  other  day,  for  instance,  I  read  Zona  Gale's 
praise  of  the  beautiful  ending  of  The  Great 
Hunger.  James  Branch  Cabell,  Joseph  Her- 
gesheimer,  and  Gene  Stratton-Porter  have 
each  spoken  most  highly  of  Bojer's  work,  and 
probably  the  words  of  each  were  hearkened  to 
by  a  separate  section  of  the  reading  public.  J 
Add  to  this  the  praise  of  John  Galsworthy  and 
of  Blasco  Ibanez,  and  it  is  obvious  that  any 
American  reader  must  have  been  impressed  be- 


\ 


12  JOHAN   BOJER 

forehand  with  the  fact  that  here  was  a  novelist 
well  worth  attention.\\ 

And  so  we  opened  the  pages  of  Bojer  and 
began  to  read.  It  is  at  this  point  that  the 
thing  gets  mysterious,  for  we  have  kept  on  read- 
ing, and  it  certainly  takes  more  than  the  en- 
dorsements of  other  novelists  to  keep  the  public 
going  in  any  one  direction.  Who  is  there  that 
has  not  praised  and  recommended  Henry  James? 
And  outside  a  very  limited  circle  who  is  there 
that  reads  him?  But  we  have  kept  on  reading 
Bojer,  and  that  in  spite  of  a  shock.  For  his 
books  undoubtedly  do  shock  the  average  Amer- 
ican. I  use  the  word  shock,  not  in  the  sense 
of  the  sort  of  dismay  which  Cabell  in  playful 
mood  produces  in  our  too-maidenly  breasts,  but 
in  the  sense  of  that  effect  which  a  cold  shower 
bath  produces. 

We  read  the  first  chapter  of  any  book  by 
Bojer  and  we  see  immediately  that  here  is 
a  novelist  who  deals  with  what  we  call  ethical 
themes,  with  problems  of  conduct.  The  Great 
Hunger  —  we  read.  Ah!  We  draw  a  deep 
breath.  With  the  perspicacity  of  spiritually 
minded  people  we  can  tell  that  this  great  hunger 


INTRODUCTION  13 

is  a  spiritual  hunger,  and  we  revel  in  anticipa- 
tion of  one  more  justification  of  the  ways  of 
God  to  man.  Perhaps  we  have  already  read 
The  Inside  of  the  Cup,  and  that  later  novel 
in  which  Mr.  Churchill  justifies  not  so  much 
the  ways  of  God  as  the  ways  of  the 
I.  W.  W.  to  man.  Certainly  we  feel,  after 
the  first  chapter,  that  here  is  a  novel  serious 
in  intent  and  clean  cut  in  workmanship,  quite 
free  from  that  horrid  Russian  introspective  sex- 
pathology  which  we  dislike  so  much. 

As  we  read  on  we  note  that  our  aesthetic  sensi- 
bilities —  if  we  have  them  —  are  charmed  and 
satisfied.  Bojer  can  tell  a  better  story  with 
more  real  character,  with  more  vividly  presented 
backgrounds,  all  in  300  pages  than  our  own 
realists  can  tell  in  five  or  seven  hundred.  His 
stories  have  unity  and  form  where  our  own 
writers  are  often  not  only  content  to  give  us  a 
"slice  of  life,"  as  they  say,  but  never  even  to  trim 
the  edges. 

Our  human  sensibilities,  however,  do  receive 
a  shock.  Bojer  is  utterly  sincere,  and  he  will 
not  justify  the  ways  of  God  to  us  —  or  the  ways 
of  nature  if  there  are  any  readers  to  whom  the 


14  JOHAN   BOJER 

word  God  is  still  a  cause  of  intellectual  offense 
—  either  by  misrepresenting  God  or  by  assuming 
that  he  must  be  justified  to  the  orthodox  man  or 
woman.  Bojer  strips  us  of  all  our  social  dis- 
guises. He  knows  that  the  way  to  peace,  to 
spiritual  adjustment,  is  through  fire  and  travail. 
"'  How  many  people  who  start  to  read  "The  Great 
Hunger"  in  optimism  will  willingly  go  all  the 
way  with  its  author  and  its  hero  —  will,  without 
inner  protest,  agree  that  Peer  Holm  did  well 
when  he  found  God  and  exchanged  for  him 
all  that  his  youth  had  brought  of  health  and 
strength,  all  the  money  that  he  had  made,  all 
his  power  over  men,  the  life  of  his  child,  his 
assurance  of  daily  bread.  A  healthy-minded, 
fairly  well-off  American,  with  the  right  amount 
of  life  insurance,  would  certainly  be  aghast  at 
the  road  Peer  Holm  took  Godward.  "Found 
God?"  he  would  exclaim,  "why,  the  man  is  down 
and  out!"  And  if  one  asked  him  if  the  first 
fact  might  not  be  worth  while,  even  if  it  involved 
the  truth  of  the  latter,  he  would,  if  he  were  well 
enough  informed,  come  back  with  "But  what 
is  pragmatism  for?  Doesn't  pragmatism  get 
you  to  God  by  a  better  way  than  that?    Or  else 


INTRODUCTION  15 

he  might  suggest  that  Peer  Holm  should  have 
studied  "New  Thought." 

My  surprise  at  the  bravery  with  which  the 
American  public  as  a  whole  has  taken  to  Bojer 
and  his  bracing  philosophy  is  partly  due  to  the 
fact  that  I  have  spoken  to  some  members  of 
the  reading  public  to  whom  his  lack  of  sentimen- 
tality was  a  stumbling  block.  They  thought 
him  cruel  and  unyielding.  His  Norwegian 
snows  chilled  them,  and  they  did  not  see  that 
it  is  that  very  snow,  pure  and  cold,  that  really 
makes  us  appreciate  the  light  of  the  sun  that 
shines  upon  it. 

Somewhere  in  Treacherous  Ground  Bojer 
has  used  the  phrase  about  the  fresh  warmth 
of  the  oncoming  summer  in  the  northern  fjords 
of  Norway  that  it  is  like  "inhaling  a  mixture 
of  sunshine  and  snow."  And  that  figure  is  an 
almost  perfect  one  for  the  enjoyment  of  all  art. 
Take  away  the  snow,  and  the  sunshine  is  too 
warm;  let  the  sunshine  melt  the  snow,  and  we 
have  muddy  sentimentality.  Bojer  hates  that 
sentimentality  in  life  as  well  as  in  art,  and  his 
Treacherous  Ground  is  a  closely  observed  ex- 
position of  it  in  life.    For,  on  the  treacherous 


1 6  JOHAN   BOJER 

ground  of  sentimentality,  does  Erik  Evje  build 
a  foundation  for  his  own  happiness  as  well  as  for 
the  happiness  and  security  of  others,  and  of 
course  the  ground  gives  way. 

Would  that  our  American  novelists  would  treat 
us  with  such  kindly  roughness  as  does  Bojer! 
Perhaps,  emboldened  by  his  success,  they  will  try 
to  work  in  the  same  manner.  I  am  convinced 
that,  to  many  of  his  readers,  some  of  the  charm 
of  his  work  is  that  they  cannot  predict  the  course 
of  his  novels  by  a  priori  considerations.  To 
illustrate,  let  us  glance  for  a  moment  at  Mr. 
Winston  ChurchilPs  The  Dwelling  Place  of 
Light,  in  which  a  girl  in  humble  circumstances 
gets  a  job  in  a  New  England  woolen  mill,  has 
a  love  affair  with  the  manager,  joins  the  I.  W.  W., 
takes  part  in  a  strike,  and  then  dies.  Through- 
out the  book  the  reader  is  always  two  jumps 
ahead  of  the  author  because  he  knows  exactly 
what  a  serious-minded  author  like  Mr.  Churchill 
must  and  must  not  do.  He  knows  that  the 
manager's  love  advances  to  the  girl  will  be  of 
the  sort  known  as  "dishonorable"  because 
American  sentiment  is  on  the  whole  against  the 
obvious  misalliance.    He  knows  that  the  I.  W. 


INTRODUCTION  17 

W.  will  be  treated  in  such  and  such  a  way  be- 
cause Mr.  Churchill  is  a  liberal  who  will  not 
damn  it  utterly,  but  who,  wishing  to  retain  the 
good  will  of  those  to  whom  he  appeals,  will  not 
exactly  take  its  side  (of  course  it  is  the  pre-war 
I.  W.  W.  that  figures  here),  and  saddest  of  all, 
the  reader  knows  that  the  girl  is  going  to  die. 
He  knows  that  the  moment  he  sees  she  cannot 
marry  the  manager  —  he  gets  killed,  if  I  remem- 
ber aright  —  and  that  she  is  due  to  give  birth 
to  a  child  of  which  he  was  the  father.  Kind 
people  take  her  in,  and  the  child  is  born.  But 
no  respectable  American  novel  could  harbor  a 
young  woman,  unmarried,  with  a  living  to  earn, 
and  a  child  to  keep  and  explain.  So  the  girl 
has  to  die.  Not  of  any  disease  or  by  an  acci- 
dent, but  just  by  fading  away.  There  was  no 
artistic  necessity  for  it,  and  certainly  none  in 
physiology,  but  Mr.  Churchill  was  writing  senti- 
mentally to  please  a  sentimental  public. 

But  how  differently  does  Bojer  handle  things. 
How  unsentimental  is  the  figure  of  Peer  Holm  1 
finding  God  at  the  expense  of  everything  else.  J 
What  a  rebuke  to  sentiment  there  is  in  Erik 
Evje  paying  for  his  private  sins  by  doing  good 


18  JOHAN   BOJER 

to  people  who  did  not  ask  him  to  come  into  their 
lives  —  doing  them  good  until  his  good  tumbles 
down  in  irretrievable  disaster.  And  with  what 
surgical  calmness  does  Bojer  show  us  the  figure 
of  Evje,  himself  unhurt  by  the  catastrophe 
he  has  caused,  his  life  and  most  of  his  land  safe 
while  other  people's  lives  and  lands  have  gone 
down  together  —  Evje,  standing  over  the  wreck- 
age, and  lamenting,  not  the  loss,  not  the  dis- 
honesty in  himself  that  caused  him  to  make  these 
people  a  sacrifice  for  his  own  sins;  but  lamenting 
the  fact  that  this  disaster  had  hurt  him  —  had 
robbed  him  of  the  protection  that  he  had  built 
against  the  assaults  of  his  own  conscience. 

This  lack  of  sentimentality  does  not  imply 
brutality.  For  at  the  point  we  have  mentioned 
the  author  leaves  Evje,  and  ends  his  book  with 
one  of  the  characters,  a  farm  worker,  who  had 
escaped  from  the  disaster,  a  lad  whom  Evje, 
in  his  zeal  for  other  people's  righteousness,  had 
persuaded  to  marry  a  girl  whom  he  had  wronged. 
But  Lars  had  done  this  in  spite  of  the  fact  that 
he  loved  another  woman:  well,  if  the  reader  has 
not  seen  the  book  I  will  not  spoil  his  enjoyment 
of  it  by  retelling  the  end,  but  for  actual  beauty 


INTRODUCTION  19 

of  human  feeling,  for  unpretentious  but  real 
pathos,  this  ending  is  one  of  the  most  beautiful 
things  that  a  novelist  has  done  for  a  long  time. 
Certainly  few  contemporary  English-writing 
novelists  have  approached  it. 

It  is  a  dangerous  thing  to  sum  up  a  novelist's 
contribution  to  us  in  terms  of  the  philosophy  he 
expresses.  And  yet  the  novel  is  the  form  that 
does,  more  than  any  other,  deal  with  conduct 
and  with  world  views.  What  saves  Bojer's 
novels  from  being  didactic  and,  therefore,  mis- 
leading is  his  adherence  to  the  great  truth  that 
there  is  no  such  thing  as  a  science  of  ethics,  but 
that  there  is  such  a  thing  as  an  art  of  conduct. 
You  cannot  make  general  rules  of  conduct,  for 
every  case  has  its  not  to  be  duplicated  features. 
Human  situations  are  not  like  the  situations  of 
geometry,  infinitely  repeatable.  But  the  gen- 
eral "lie  of  the  land"  in  the  case  of  an  author 
I  may,  at  least,  be  indicated  roughly. 
And  in  all  four  of  these  novels  we  see  men 
trying  this,  that  and  the  other  patent  medicine 
of  conduct.  They  try  to  compound  their  secret 
sins  not  so  much  by  damning  those  they  are 
not  inclined  to  as  by  trying  to  remedy  their 


20  JOHAN    BOJER 

effects  —  as  did  Evje  —  or  they  rely  upon  the 
justice  of  their  "cause"  —  as  Wangen  in  The 
Power  of  a  Lie  relied  upon  the  fact  of  his 
innocence  to  excuse  that  in  them  which  is  not 
just  and  not  innocent.  Or,  like  Doctor  Mark  in 
The  Face  of  the  World,  they  try  to  find  peace 
by  taking  the  sins  of  the  world  upon  their  own 
too  weak  shoulders,  and  find  that  they  cannot 
help  the  world,  and  that  they  have  lost  the 
strength  that  might,  at  least,  have  upheld  their 
own  loved  ones  who  suffer  while  they  agonize 
over  suffering  that  they  cannot  stop.  Dr.  Mark 
may  well  be  contrasted  with  Evje:  a  good  man 
and  a  bad  man  each  trying  by  almost  the  same 
means  to  find  peace. 

The  typical  Bojer  novel  may  be  said  to  ex- 
hibit a  modern  soul  tortured  with  moral  ideas, 
as  Rolland  said  of  Tolstoy;  "sometimes,  too, 
pregnant  with  a  hidden  god,"  but  always  blun- 
dering toward  an  adjustment  with  the  world, 
Blundering  hopefully,  but  really,  not  finding  a 
chart  as  our  ethical  teachers  would  assure  us 
is  possible,  but  finding  that  there  is  no  chart 
and  that  we  must  keep  on  blundering  until,  by 
trial  and  error,  we  make  our  own  adjustment 


INTRODUCTION  21 

to  life.  After  all  it  is  the  method  of  all  human 
advance.  Science  is  the  finding  of  things  out  by 
experiment,  and  an  experiment  is  simply  a  suc- 
cess following  a  number  of  blunders.  If  the 
world  were  really  what  homilists  try  to  assure  us 
it  is,  science  would  be  unnecessary  because  we 
could  deduce  all  knowledge  from  a  priori  prin- 
ciples. And  the  novelists  of  piety  have  their 
a  priori  principles  of  charity  and  fidelity  and 
courage  and  truth-telling,  and,  like  Harold  Bell 
Wright,  begin  with  those  abstractions  and 
clothe  them  in  human  garments. 

So  Bojer  shows  us  the  futility  of  charts  and 
the  great  perils  of  self-deception.  We  keep  our 
souls  by  eternal  vigilance  and  by  feeding  them 
upon  the  bread  of  the  moment.  Dr.  Mark  ends 
by  embracing  love  and  taking  all  that  he  can 
get  from  the  world's  stores  —  the  philosophy  of 
Jesus  as  well  as  the  music  of  Beethoven.  And 
Peer  Holm  sows  his  neighbor's  field  "that  God 
may  exist." 

And  Peter  Wangen,  disdaining  the  spiritual 
food  of  his  wife's  love  when  he  is  under  the 
cloud  of  a  false  accusation,  becoming  self- 
righteous  because  he  knows  that  he  is  innocent, 


22  JOHAN    BOJER 

overdraws  his  account.  He  asks  too  much  from 
that  little  stock  of  innocency  —  as  if  thousands 
of  men,  though  not  falsely  accused,  were  not  just 
as  innocent  as  he  was.  He  overdraws  and 
spends  lavishly.  He  becomes  wicked,  that  is  to 
say,  bankrupt  of  virtue,  because  he  magnifies 
the  virtue  that  is  maligned  by  Knut  Norby's 
accusation  of  forgery  against  him.  He  makes 
the  accusation  almost  a  true  one  by  becoming 
a  forger.  And  Norby,  tortured  by  his  con- 
science for  his  misdeed  —  for  he  had  not  in- 
tended to  accuse  Wangen  of  forgery  until  chance 
set  the  rumor  going  and  so  suggested  this  sin 
to  him  —  Norby,  so  tortured  as  long  as  Wangen 
is  a  helpless  adversary,  is  hardened  in  his  course 
and  relieved  of  remorse  when  Wangen  begins 
falsely  to  accuse  him,  to  ascribe  to  him  motives 
for  the  injury  that  were  far  from  his  mind. 
Then,  when  public  opinion  lets  Norby  know  that 
it  is  behind  him,  that  it  considers  him  an  honest 
man  traduced  by  a  blackguard,  Norby  actually 
forgets  he  was  anything  but  an  honest  man,  he 
expands  in  the  smiles  of  approval,  and  actually 
does  become  a  better  man  than  he  had  ever  been 
before,  simply  because  he  feeds  on  the  spiritual 


INTRODUCTION  23 

food  that  is  brought  to  him  on  the  winds  of 
circumstance. 

That  the  food  was  stolen,  that  he  was  not 
innocent,  is  what  will  shock  the  sentimental 
reader,  as  it  has  shocked  Hall  Caine  who  writes 
an  introduction  for  this  latest  novel.  That  is 
because  Hall  Caine  believes  that  life  is  a  charted 
affair,  that  setting  a  certain  course  always  brings 
you  to  a  certain  destination,  and  he  cannot  see 
how  the  course  of  evil  brings  Norby  to  the 
destination  of  good.  But  Bojer  knows  that  the  - 
world  as  such  is  amoral,  uncharted.  Stolen 
money  is  as  likely  to  earn  a  safe  six  per  cent 
as  money  that  was  toiled  for.  Nature  is  not  a 
justice  of  the  peace,  and  she  does  not  protect 
the  Wangens  because  they  are  honest  or  punish 
the  Norbys  because  they  are  dishonest.  Both 
the  Norbys  and  the  Wangens  reward  or  punish 
themselves.  Wangen  was  weak.  In  his  trouble 
he  leaned  on  the  outside  fact  of  his  innocence, 
just  as  Mark,  a  good  man,  and  Evje,  a  bad  man, 
tried  to  lean  on  the  outside  facts  of  Socialism  and 
philanthropy.  They  all  three  found  that  out- 
side facts  are  likely  to  fail  us. 

Norby  was  ethically  in  the  wrong,  but  he  did 


24  JOHAN   BOJER 

not  squeal  or  run  after  sympathy.  He  faced  his 
sin  in  his  own  bosom  until  the  tactics  of  the  inno- 
cent aroused  his  fighting  blood.  He  was  a 
scoundrel,  undoubtedly,  but  he  was  not  trying 
to  live  above  his  ethical  means:  he  did  not  try 
to  overdraw  his  moral  account.  He  does  not 
beg  spiritual  sympathy  —  and  lo,  it  comes  flood- 
ing in  upon  and  makes  him  virtuous  in  spite  of 
himself. 

That  is  rather  bitter  teaching  for  our  nation 
of  well-intentioned  people.  It  was  too  bitter  for 
Mr.  Hall  Caine,  and  he  frankly  says  so  in  his 
introduction. 

But  when  one  reflects  upon  the  unique  recep- 
tion which  the  work  of  Bojer  has  had  in  Amer- 
ica, one  wonders  whether  we  are  not  beginning 
to  grow  up,  whether  our  reading  public  is  not 
ceasing  to  be  juvenile  or  adolescent,  and  becom- 
ing mature.  Certainly  that  large  proportion  of 
it  which  is  reading  Bojer  will  never  again  be 
satisfied  with  sentimentality  in  fiction.  They 
will  have  seen  how  even  the  most  ethical  aspects 
of  life,  the  most  pressing  "problems"  of  conduct, 
may  be  made  the  subject  matter  of  novels  at 
once  utterly  sincere  in  their  approach  to  life, 


INTRODUCTION  25 

beautifully  proportioned  in  their  massing  of 
background,  circumstances,  and  character,  and 
psychologically  honest  and  significant  in  their 
illumination  of  the  depths  of  the  human  soul. 


JOHAN   BOJER   AND    KAHLIL   GIBRAN 

THIS  small  volume,  devoted  to  the  study  of 
a  man  whom  critics  have  proclaimed  the 
most  significant  writer  to  come  out  of  Scandi- 
navia since  Henrik  Isben,  is  an  endeavor  to  give 
to  that  ever-growing  host  of  Bojer  students  a 
panorama  picture  of  Bojer's  literary  develop- 
ment. Primarily  it  is  a  study  of  Johan  Bojer's 
writings,  but  I  believe  that  when  one  reads  the 
comments  of  Mr.  Gad  and  Mr.  Llewellyn  Jones, 
or  the  critiques  of  Mr.  Galsworthy  and  Mr. 
Cabell,  one  will  turn  to  the  frontispiece  by  Kahlil 
Gibran  with  realization  that  what  these  able 
writers  have  done  with  their  pens  finds  a  mar- 
velously  intelligent  companion-piece  in  the  draw- 
ing of  Gibran. 

Kahlil  Gibran,  the  painter  and  poet  of 
Lebanon,  aroused  my  sincere  admiration  some 
years  ago  by  his  book  of  poems,  The  Madman. 
As  I  sat  in  his  studio  one  day  last  April,  on  the 

occasion  of  Bojer's  first  visit  to  America,  and 

27 


28  JOHAN   BOJER 

saw  him  dip  into  the  soul  of  the  man  who  had 
written  The  Great  Hunger,  and  produce  in 
high  light  and  shadow  this  likeness  upon  his 
drawing  board,  I  knew  that  Gibran's  genius  was 
two-fold  —  the  poet  and  artist  were  inseparable. 

"This  is  an  unusual  face,"  declared  Gibran. 

"So  many  hills  and  valleys!"  replied  Bojer. 

Bojer  was  manifestly  nervous.  He  folded  and 
unfolded  his  hands  as  he  talked  —  and  his  talk 
was  mostly  about  fairy  tales,  tales  of  his  own 
saga  that  declared  his  kinship  with  Hans  Ander- 
sen. He  told  us  stories  as  he  sat  and  as  Gilbran 
drew.  He  was  infinitely  embarrassed  and  was 
difficult  to  pose.  The  sitting  lasted  more  than 
an  hour,  and  when  it  was  over  Bojer  stood  be- 
fore the  drawing  with  his  hands  behind  his  back, 
balancing  himself  upon  his  toes.  Turning  to 
Gibran,  he  said: 

"You  are  a  sculptor.  Your  work  should  be  in 
marble!  Your  drawing  resembles  works  by 
Michelangelo  and  Rodin." 

Certainly  those  who  know  Bojer  the  man,  who 
have  felt  the  power  of  the  restless,  dynamic 
force  that  pervades  his  being,  will  find  in  this 
drawing  a  study  of  infinite  power  and  penetrating 


INTRODUCTION  29 

character  analysis.  For  those  who  love  him  as 
the  writer  who  knows  men's  hearts,  who  under- 
stands life's  ironies,  and  whose  belief  in  Man 
makes  possible  the  universal  popularity  of  his 
translations,  they  too  will  see  in  the  Gibran 
drawings  these  self-same  things. 

Howard  Willard  Cook 

July  9th,  1920 


JOHAN   BOJER 
THE   MAN   AND   HIS   WORKS 


JOHAN  BOJER 

THE  MAN  AND   HIS  WORKS 

THE   BOYHOOD   OF   BOJER 

JOHAN  BOJER  was  born  March  6,  1872,  at 
Orkedalsoren  near  Trondhjem.  He,  like 
Strindberg,  was  the  son  of  a  servant  girl;  and 
as  his  mother  could  not  keep  him  with  her,  he 
was  put  out  to  nurse  in  the  country.  The 
greater  part  of  his  childhood  was  passed  at 
Rissen  on  the  other  side  of  the  fiord,  at  the  house 
of  a  cottager,  on  the  estate  of  Reinsklostret, 
Elias  Faetten  by  name;  and  there  he  grew  up, 
under  the  conditions  of  the  children  of  that  part. 
He  fished  in  the-^prd,  tended  cattle  in  the  fields 
in  summer,  and  went  once  a  week  to  school,  to 
stay  two  days.  On  Sundays,  he  went  to  service 
with  the  grown-ups;  and,  in  the  evenings,  in 
front  of  the  open  fire,  he  heard  Mother  Randi 
tell  fairy  tales  and  stories  of  the  trolls  like  those 

33 


34  JOHAN    BOJER 

that  Bojer  later  fathered  under  the  title  of 
Gamle  Historier  (Old  Tales).  Mother  Randi, 
herself,  had  seen  these  little  people  and  believed 
firmly  in  them. 

When  Johan  was  fifteen  years  old,  he  found  a 
way  to  go  to  DybdahPs  country  school,  and 
there  he  heard,  for  the  first  time,  that  there  was 
something  called  literature  and  poetry.  Dyb- 
dahl  himself  was,  as  Bojer  said,  "a  fire  and  a 
brand,"  and  when  he  read  Peer  Gynt,  his  hearers 
wept  copiously. 

The  course  was  short,  and,  at  its  conclusion, 
Bojer  took  service  with  a  prosperous  farmer 
named  Andreas  Fallin,  where  he  had  opportunity 
to  observe  the  workings  of  politics  from  a  point 
of  vantage.  There  took  place,  for  example,  the 
great  meetings  of  electors,  which  are  described 
in  Et  Folketog  (The  Procession),  where  Ullman 
began  his  speech  with  such  force  that  a  cat  "ran 
into  the  woods  and  never  afterwards  was  seen 
there  again."  Bojer's  reading  consisted  of  the 
Bible  and  the  Parliamentary  Gazette.  In  the 
hours  he  had  to  himself  he  began  to  write  psalms, 
and,  when  alone  in  the  woods,  he  delivered  polit- 
ical speeches  to  the  trees  and  bushes. 


THE    BOYHOOD    OF   BOJER        35 

The  impulse  to  pursue  his  studies  farther  soon 
became  too  strong  for  him,  so  at  eighteen  years 
of  age,  he  gained  admission  to  a  school  for 
non-commissioned  officers  at  Trondhjem,  where 
one  got  not  only  instruction,  but  also  keep  and 
clothing  free.  In  the  three  years  of  his  attend- 
ance there,  he  was  ever  busy  gathering  knowl- 
edge. He  read  English  with  a  hotel  porter  — 
who,  later,  was  sent  to  prison  for  murder  —  and 
he  went  assiduously  to  the  public  lectures  in 
the  city,  where,  among  other  things,  there  was 
a  course  in  the  history  of  European  literature 
given  by  the  head  master  Richter,  who,  later, 
became  Johan's  critic  and  friend. 

While  he  was  in  Trondhjem,  he  heard  two 
lectures  by  Herman  Bang  and  Knut  Hamsun 
that  made  a  powerful  impression  upon  him,  and 
clarified  for  him  his  visions  and  his  desires  for 
the  future.  Until  this  time  he  had  quite  defi- 
nitely thought  of  being  a  farm  owner  in  some 
pretty  place  —  also  of  being  a  sergeant,  who 
might  perhaps,  in  war  time,  advance  to  the 
rank  of  general.  But,  now,  both  of  these  ambi- 
tions were  overshadowed  by  a  greater  idea  — 
to  become  a  poet. 


36  JOHAN    BOJER 

Temporarily,  that  had  to  be  the  lure  of  the 
future,  for  he  had  to  devote  himself  to  earning 
a  livelihood.  After  leaving  the  military  school, 
he  took  a  commercial  course,  and  pursued,  in 
the  following  years,  various  occupations;  as  fish- 
erman among  the  Lofot  Islands,  as  first  commis- 
sioner, and  as  sewing  machine  agent.  For  part  of 
the  time  he  had  a  position  with  a  business  house 
in  Trondhjem,  but  he  fitted  ill  in  such  a  place. 
He  studied  French  grammar  in  office  time,  and 
wrote  poetry  in  odd  moments.  He  would  spend 
nights  in  planning  plays  and  novels,  in  conse- 
quence of  which  his  head  was  heavy  for  the 
next  day's  work,  and  his  account  books  were 
in  sad  disorder. 

In  these  years  his  first  two  books  were  pro- 
duced, the  play,  En  Moder  (A  Mother),  1894, 
and  the  story,  Helga  (1895),  which  tells  of  a 
young  man  who  steals  to  help  his  mother,  and 
kills  himself  when  it  is  discovered.  This  was 
played  at  Trondhjem  by  the  Swedish  producer 
Engelbrecht.  It  did  particularly  well,  and 
brought  the  author  600  kronen.  Helga  was 
also  quite  well  received.  It  is  a  story  of  the 
Trondhjem  district,  not  specially  distinguished 


THE    BOYHOOD    OF    BOJER        37 

or  original,  but  natural  in  tone,  and  with  a  sure 
style. 

Bojer  had  now  become  an  author,  definitely, 
and,  with  his  first  honorarium  in  his  purse,  he 
went  on  a  long  trip,  first  to  Copenhagen,  and 
then  to  Paris.  When  the  money  was  used  up,  he 
traveled  with  Obstfelder  on  foot  to  Amsterdam, 
from  where  they  got  home  by  sailboat.  They 
slept  under  haystacks  and  ate  little,  but,  in  the 
cities  of  Belgium  and  Holland,  they  enriched 
themselves  with  art  —  Obstfelder  explaining, 
and  Bojer  learning. 

The  next  winter,  Bojer  was  in  Copenhagen, 
where  he  wrote  correspondence  for  a  Trondhjem 
advertiser  at  five  kronen  apiece.  He  also  gave 
lectures  at  Hoffding  and  ValdVedel,  and  spent 
much  of  his  time  in  the  Imperial  library.  In  the 
summer  of  1896,  he  returned  to  Norway  penni- 
less, but  got  a  position  in  his  home  town  of 
Rissen,  where  he  could  live  practically  without 
expense.  It  was  there  that  he  wrote  Et  Folke- 
tog,  but  in  order  to  get  to  Christiania  to  find 
a  publisher,  he  had  literally  to  pawn  his  belong- 
ings piecemeal.  But  when  he  got  there,  the 
novel  was  quickly  accepted;  it  created  a  sensa- 


38  JOHAN    BOJER 

tion,  and  was  recognized  on  all  sides,  especially 
after  Arne  Garborg  had  praised  it  in  high  terms. 
It  soon  ran  into  a  second  edition;  the  borrowed 
money  was  repaid,  and  the  future  assured  again 
for  a  time. 

During  the  following  years  he  brought  out 
the  fairy  tale  collections,  Paa  Kirkevei  (At  the 
Churchyard  Gate)  1897,  and  Rorfloiterne  (The 
Wind  in  the  Reeds)  1898,  of  which  the  first  ran 
to  four,  the  second  to  two  editions.  These  tales 
are  uneven  both  in  tone  and  value,  a  number 
of  them  carelessly  written,  but  the  others  deserve 
to  be  read  for  the  idea,  or  the  lyrical  expression. 
There  are  very  few  of  them  that  come  up  to  the 
standard  of  the  later  collection,  White  Birds 
(1904,  Hvide  Fugle).  Besides  these  Bojer  wrote, 
at  this  time,  two  plays,  Granholmen  (Island  of 
the  Dead,  1895)  and  Hellig  Olav  (Saint  Olof, 
1897)  which,  however,  do  not  deserve  special 
mention. 

Bojer  married  in  1899  Ellen  Lange,  daughter 
of  Colonel  Lange,  and  their  children  were,  Thora, 
born  1902,  Landi  Faetten  (named  after  Bojer's 
beloved  foster-mother),  born  1903,  and  Halvard, 
born  1905.    During  these  years  he  led  a  wander- 


THE    BOYHOOD    OF    BOJER        39 

ing  life.  He  lived  five  years  in  France,  three  in 
Italy,  and  also  spent  considerable  time  in  Den- 
mark, in  Germany,  and  in  England.  It  was  not 
till  1907  that  he  took  firm  root  in  Norway,  living 
at  first,  for  two  years,  at  Gjovik  near  Mjosen, 
then  two  years  at  Baekkelaget,  near  Christiania, 
and,  finally,  for  his  health's  sake,  four  years  at 
Harpefoss  in  Gudbrandsdalen.  In  19 15  he 
bought  a  piece  of  land  at  Hvalstad,  a  couple  of 
miles  south  of  Christiania,  and  there  he  built 
himself  a  house,  and  set  up  a  permanent  home. 
Bojer  only  writes  during  the  summer.  In  the 
winter,  he  studies:  the  thirst  for  knowledge, 
which,  in  his  youth,  drove  him  on,  has  never 
been  slaked,  and  he  has,  in  the  course  of  the 
years,  gathered  for  himself  a  profound  and  ex- 
tensive erudition.  He  is  learned  in  many  un- 
usual lines,  not  least  of  all,  in  the  classic  litera- 
ture of  the  country. 

The  three  male  characters  in  Bojer's  work  that 
cast  most  light  upon  the  author  have  all  one 
essential  trait  in  common.  Of  the  painter  Tan- 
gen,  in  Liv  (Life),  who  is  most  thoroughly  rep- 
resentative, it  is  said  that  he  had  "the  desire  and 


V 


4o  JOHAN   BOJER 

chance  to  be  young  when  he  got  to  his  later 
years."  Sigurd  Braa  says  of  himself:  "I  was 
oldish  when  I  was  twenty,  read  Latin  when  I 
was  thirty,  and  went  to  dancing  school  in  my 
forties.  Next  year  I  shall  really  be  young." 
And  when  Peer  Holm  in  Den  Store  Hunger 
(The  Great  Hunger)  comes  home  from  Egypt 
and  marries,  the  story  tells  us  that  the  youth  that 
had  no  chance  of  freedom  between  twenty  and 
thirty  must  finally,  one  day,  break  loose. 

There  is,  about  these  three  men,  fjr  whom 
youth  comes  as  an  Indian  summer,  something  ex- 
uberantly powerful  in  the  long  dammed-up  feel- 
ings that  finally  overflow  their  banks;  they  have 
a  sense  of  having  much  to  make  up  for,  and  so 
their  appetite  for  life  becomes  devouring. 

There  is,  undoubtedly,  something  of  the  au- 
thor in  this  trait.  Bojer  had  a  hard  struggle 
when  young.  All  that  most  people  learn  when 
they  are  children  he  had  to  acquire  as  a  young 
man,  and  the  hard  fight  to  get  along  and  force 
his  way  could  not  but  put  its  mark  on  him. 
And  moreover,  his  generation's  whole  spiritual 
coin  was  quite  other  than  what  would  purchase 
youthful  joy  of  living.    Dr.  Holth  in  Liv  (Life) 


THE    BOYHOOD    OF    BOJER        41 

has  a  reply,  which  rings  strongly  subjective: 
"You  see,  Miss  Riis"  (he  says  to  Astrid),  "your 
generation  has  eyes  much  freer  to  see  beauty 
with,  than  mine  had.  We  grew  up  with  Zola 
and  Ibsen,  and  the  truths  we  learned  to  value 
were  painful  and  unpleasant.  Now  I  see  with 
amazement  that  all  that  time  the  apple  trees 
and  the  dropping  sorrel  were  covered  with  blos- 
soms every  single  year.  In  all  the  abstract 
problems  we  young  people  dwelt  in  the  midst  of 
there  was  never  one  green  blade." 

Bojer's  own  work  had  been,  for  many  years, 
marked  by  the  discussion  of  abstract  problems, 
but  when  he  first,  for  good  and  all,  lifted  his  eyes 
to  the  blooming  apple  trees  and  the  beauty  of 
the  sorrel,  he  grew  intoxicated  with  rapture,  and 
every  book  that  he  wrote  grew  richer  and  fuller 
of  the  joy  of  beauty. 

Bojer's  work  is  full  of  contrasts.  Light  and 
shade  are  deeply  underscored,  so  strongly  that 
qflft  is  tempted  to  divide  his  books  into  "bright" 
and  "dark."  His  work  falls  naturally  into  three 
periods,  and  in  the  two  first,  the  gloomy  element 
is,  by  far,  the  more  prominent.  In  the  first 
period,  he  limns  chiefly  politicians,  and  analyzes 


42  JOHAN   BOJER 

the  bringing  about  of  political  ruin,  and  in  the 
next  period,  he  elaborates  and  extends  the  same 
problems  in  other  realms,  and  paints  personal- 
ities who,  in  one  fashion  or  another,  fail  and 
go  to  pieces.  In  both  periods,  it  is  true,  we 
find  bright  characters,  but  it  is  not  until  the  third 
period  that  these  become  the  predominant  ele- 
ment. Joy  of  living  and  optimism  win  the  vic- 
tory, and  his  writing  now  takes  on  the  air  of  a 
hymn  that  celebrates  the  mercy  and  generosity 
in  men's  hearts. 


II 

SOCIAL   CRITICISM 

THE  first  of  Johan  Bojer's  books  that  as- 
sumes a  likeness  of  lasting  worth  is  the 
novel  Et  Folketog  (1896).  This  book  is  a  sign 
manual  of  his  right  to  be  ranked  as  author,  and 
together  with  his  two  succeeding  novels,  Den 
Evige  Krig  (1899)  and  Moder  Lea  (1900)  it 
makes  up,  in  a  natural  sequence  the  first  group 
of  his  writings  —  novels  of  social  criticism.  All 
three  are  concerned  with  the  antagonism  of  poli- 
tics to  labor. 

Et  Folketog  —  an  amazingly  mature  and  as- 
sured piece  of  work  for  a  writer  of  but  twenty- 
four  years  of  age  —  pictures  the  political  strug- 
gle in  a  Vestland  parish,  and  analyses  its  effect 
upon  the  farmer  Peter  Hegge,  upon  his  home, 
and  upon  the  whole  district. 

Hegge  himself  was  a  well-meaning  idealist 
who  believed  in  the  great  aims  of  democracy, 
and  felt  a  call  to  enter  personally  into  the 

43 


44  JOHAN   BOJER 

fight  against  all  the  poverty  and  wrong  in  the 
land.  But,  at  the  same  time,  he  was  practical 
enough  to  understand  that  direct  work  for  bet- 
tering the  conditions  of  life  for  the  peasant  was 
more  interesting  and  worth  while  than  the  great 
platform  points  —  universal  suffrage  and  a  sepa- 
rate minister  for  foreign  affairs.  He  determined 
therefore,  that  when  he  got  into  Parliament,  he 
would,  first  and  foremost,  work  to  bring  about 
one  achievement  —  free  loans  for  farmers. 

This  loan,  and  more  especially  what  he  would 
accomplish  in  Parliament,  became  his  constant 
dream.  Hegge  determined  that  he  would  do 
great  and  honorable  acts,  and  gain  justly  a  repu- 
tation as  an  upright,  great-souled  character. 
But,  in  order  to  be  elected,  it  was,  alas,  neces- 
sary to  go  crooked  ways  and  to  make  use  of 
many  petty  means.  Hegge  found  himself 
dragged  into  these  inevitably.  The  nearer  elec- 
tion day  approached,  and  the  more  hotly  he  pur- 
sued the  campaign,  the  more  firmly  he  became 
bound  by  promises  and  pledges  that  he  knew 
could  never  be  fulfilled,  and  the  more  wretched 
his  conscience  made  him. 

Thus,  however,  Hegge  made  his  way  into 


SOCIAL   CRITICISM  45 

Parliament.  But  if  he  had  not  been  a  free  man 
in  his  actions  before,  he  was  now  forever  bound. 
"The  psychological  moment"  to  introduce  the 
proposal  of  the  loan  obviously  never  arrived, 
and  Peter  Hegge  quickly  learned  that  he  must 
knuckle  down  to  the  "interests  of  the  party." 
And  what  else  was  there  really  to  do?  His  very 
position  was  at  stake  if  he  ventured  to  take  his 
own  way!  So  he  gave  up  every  thought  of 
practical  politics,  and  when  the  next  election 
came,  he  talked  no  more  about  interest,  free 
loans,  timber  laws,  and  fishing  laws,  but  fell, 
like  the  others,  into  phrase-making,  and  spoke 
great  words  about  supporting  the  party  —  for 
the  fatherland's  sake. 

At  the  same  time  that  Peter  Hegge's  character 
was  being  undermined  and  his  personality  lost 
in  a  maze  of  words  and  sterile  tactics,  his  home 
affairs  also  went  wrong. 

He  had  no  time  to  attend  to  the  care  of  the 
farm,  because  reports  and  meetings  filled  his 
days.  And  so  it  came  about  that  the  political 
struggle  was  followed  by  a  financial  one.  In 
order  to  stand  well  with  people  he  had  to  sign 
notes  for  them  when  they  wanted  to  borrow 


46  JOHAN   BOJER 

money  from  the  bank  of  which  he  was  director. 
But  his  opponent,  Bergheimen,  who  was  the 
richest  man  of  the  parish,  had  money  out  on 
mortgage  in  various  farm  properties,  and  by 
causing  the  ruin  of  first  one  and  then  another 
farmer,  brought  it  to  pass  that  Hegge  must  sell 
his  farm  in  order  to  pay  up  the  notes  he  had 
endorsed. 

Together  with  the  financial  wreck,  politics 
brought  unhappiness  into  the  home  itself.  When 
Peter  Hegge  and  his  wife,  Gunhild,  became  alien- 
ated from  one  another  it  was  clearly  evident 
that  the  cause  lay  in  an  extrinsic  circumstance. 
The  youngest  child  fell  sick  of  pneumonia  and 
died  before  the  doctor  came.  Gunhild  could 
not  forgive  her  husband  for  the  fact  that  she 
had  to  stand  alone  at  the  child's  death  bed,  and 
that  even  the  physician  could  not  be  secured 
quickly  enough  because  the  father  was  away  on 
political  business.  But  the  event  was,  in  reality, 
only  a  symbol  of  the  fact  that  she  must  be  alone 
in  everything  that  was  to  be  done  in  the  home, 
since  he  neglected  all  else  for  the  sake  of  public 
interests. 

This  lack  of  family  interest  showed  itself  also 


SOCIAL   CRITICISM  47 

upon  the  other  children.  The  son  Anders  grew 
up  a  good-for-naught,  and  the  daughter,  Kris- 
tine,  the  book's  one  fine  and  bright  character, 
was  sacrificed  inexorably.  The  father's  politics 
and  the  financial  difficulties  he  had  met  with,  had 
delivered  him  into  the  clutches  of  the  old  and, 
in  every  respect,  uninviting  color-sergeant,  Mo. 
He  demanded,  in  payment  of  the  debt,  Kristine 
as  wife,  and  got  her  —  there  was  no  other  way 
out. 

The  plot's  final  development  shows  how  a 
taint  affects  the  whole  parish,  bringing  about 
decay  and  disintegration,  enmity,  strife,  es- 
trangements because  of  politics  extending  into 
every  relation  of  life.  Public  affairs  take  up 
a  preposterous  and  disproportionate  amount  of 
time  and  thought.  "The  Controlling  Party," 
says  one  of  the  few  far-seeing  characters  in 
the  book,  Schoolmaster  Trong,  "is  so  constantly 
busy  with  seventeenth  of  May  speeches  and 
national  hymns  that  they  are  almost  ashamed 
to  mention  anything  so  prosaic  as  farming  or 
dairy  management." 

The  leaders  went  about  in  the  parish  and 
talked  of  the  fatherland  with  their  hands  in 


48  JOHAN   BOJER 

their  pockets.  Instead  of  taking  the  lead  in 
up-to-date  methods  and  business-like,  solid  work, 
they  subjugate  everything  —  as  Hegge  with  his 
interest-free  loan  —  to  the  party  and  its  sup- 
port. All  really  useful  matters  were  laid  on  the 
table  and  came  to  nothing.  Thus,  for  instance, 
when  a  new  mill  was  needed,  which  would  be  of 
inestimable  value  to  the  parish  if  one  could  only 
get  the  plans  made,  other  things  were  proposed 
and  the  plans  were  forgotten. 

The  bitter  mood  of  the  book  is  fully  expressed 
at  last  by  a  symbol  —  artistically  speaking,  a 
strained  and  very  unsuccessful  one.  After  a 
great  public  meeting  the  politicians  sail  away 
down  the  river  to  the  sound  of  singing  and 
music.  Each  believed  the  other  was  looking  out 
for  the  rapids.  It  is  Bjornson,  who  sings:  "Put 
your  all  into  the  nearest  call." 

In  the  meantime  they  drove  blindly  on,  and 
only  discovered  the  danger  when  it  was  too  late. 
And  then  it  appeared  that  no  one  would  jump 
out,  all  wanted  to  row.  They  fought  among 
themselves  and  many  were  injured,  while  the 
rowboat  glided  on  —  a  symbol  for  the  parish  or 
for  Norway  —  steadily  towards  the  rapids. 


SOCIAL   CRITICISM  49 

If  Et  Folketog  is  a  bitter  book  for  parlia- 
mentary devotees  to  read,  Den  Evige  Krig  is  so 
in  a  still  higher  degree. 

The  chief  personage,  the  estate  owner  Samuel 
Brandt,  is  a  character  of  the  same  sort  as  Peter 
Hegge,  but  from  another  class  of  society. 

He  began  with  the  most  upright  intentions 
and  the  most  ardent  desire  to  fight  for  honest 
measures.  Belief  in  democracy  was  his  religion, 
and  he  threw  himself  into  the  agitation  with  a 
truly  religious  fervor.  But  things  went  with 
him  as  with  Hegge;  his  character  suffered  in  the 
fight. 

The  first  time  he  talked  at  a  public  meeting, 
he  was  carried  away  by  mob-feeling  and  felt 
ashamed  of  himself  afterward  as  a  liar,  and 
swore  never  again  to  mount  a  platform.  The 
text  day  he  was  sneered  at  and  lashed  at 
in    the    Conservative    papers.     He    thought 

11s  right  and  proper,  and  he  was  angry 
it  the  comments  of  the  radical  paper,  The 
Future.  Afterwards,  however,  when  he  thought 
over  the  articles  in  the  Conservative  papers, 
he  came  to  have  a  sense  of  injury,  and, 
at  the  same  time,  to  be  better  pleased  with  his 


50  JOHAN   BOJER 

speech.  The  sense  of  affront  grew,  the  more 
he  thought  about  it,  until  he  finally  became 
so  bitter  against  the  Conservatives  that  he 
made  up  his  mind  to  set  out  on  a  regular 
speaking  tour.  Thus  the  trend  of  things  was 
changed. 

In  the  Conservative  papers  Samuel  Brandt 
was  persecuted,  and  each  speech  was  distorted, 
but  he  was,  at  the  same  time,  praised  to  the 
heavens  by  The  Future.  It  became  more  and 
more  impossible  for  him,  in  this  exciting  life, 
to  maintain  restraint  and  independence  in  his 
convictions,  and  little  by  little,  he  became  sucked 
into  the  great,  fatal  whirlpool  of  party  fanati- 
cism. 

But  Brandt  is  constantly  racked  with  doubt 
and  uncertainty.  He  is  robbed  by  practical 
politics,  little  by  little,  of  all  his  faith  in  the 
party  and  its  mission,  and  later,  as  minister, 
having  pursued  a  hopeless  fight  against  the 
spoil  system  and  stupidity  in  "the  practical  lay- 
man's sense,"  he  returned  home  to  Lindegard  a 
defeated  and  broken  man. 

While  the  radical  Brandt  was  pursuing  his 
political  gods,  his  own  estate  fell  into  decay. 


SOCIAL   CRITICISM  51 

In  this  case,  too,  "the  human  sacrifice"  was  not 
avoided ;  it  was  the  sister  Sarah,  who  —  a  small 
improbability  —  gave  up  her  own  chance  of 
happiness  in  order  to  attend  to  her  brother's 
home  and  child,  while  he  went  into  politics. 

That  Samuel  Brandt  is  considered  the  chief 
character  in  Den  Evige  Krig  is  only  because, 
on  account  of  the  book's  temper,  he  is  brought 
somewhat  more  strongly  forward  than  the  others, 
and  because  he  is  examined  more  as  to  mental 
processes.  But  there  are  a  number  of  other 
characters  who  lay  claim,  with  perhaps  equal 
right,  to  as  much  space  and  interest. 

There  is,  first,  the  laborer,  Jansen.  He  had, 
while  apprentice,  been  sent  to  prison  because, 
half  dead  from  hunger,  he  had  stolen  a  couple 
of  young  chickens.  His  parents  died  of  shame 
and  sorrow,  the  girl  he  loved  married  another 
man,  and  Jansen  felt  himself  to  be  an  outcast 
from  society.  After  many  years  of  sailing  the 
sea,  and  when  no  one  longer  remembered  him, 
he  married,  but  bitterness  had  become  rooted 
in  his  heart  by  this  time,  and  he  developed  into 
a  passionate  and  sullen  agitator  against  the  ex- 
isting social  system. 


52  JOHAN   BOJER 

Then  he  met  Samuel  Brandt  and  his  bitter- 
ness was  conquered  by  the  latter's  friendliness 
and  human  sympathy.  He  gave  up  the  agita- 
tions and  found  happiness  in  his  home,  but  this 
did  not  last  long.  Soon  he  re-entered  politics, 
because  the  radical  leaders  who  had  seen  that  he 
was  useful,  made  advances  and  flattered  him  into 
taking  a  share  in  the  party's  work. 

Jansen  became  a  member  of  Parliament. 
There  are  long  speeches  made  about  his  many 
excellences  and  his  high  virtue  as  a  man.  At 
the  same  time  there  is  much  talk  about  democ- 
racy as  the  party  of  brotherly  love,  which  carries 
out  "Christ's  own  will"  both  for  the  small  and 
the  great  in  society.  The  time  seems  ripe  to 
Jansen  to  ease  his  conscience  and  tell  of  the  dark 
blot  on  his  childhood. 

Such  an  instance  had  come  to  Bojer's  own 
ears.  In  1893  the  laborer,  Hagerup,  was  elected 
member  of  Parliament  at  Trondhjem,  strongly 
supported  by  the  radical  press.  He  also  had 
been  in  prison  when  young,  and  when  he  was 
naive  enough,  relying  on  the  humanity  of  the 
party;  to  confess  to  this,  they  threw  him  over 
completely.     Bojer,  who  knew  Hagerup,  was 


SOCIAL   CRITICISM  53 

greatly  upset  by  the  lack  of  generosity  that  was 
shown  on  all  sides,  and  one  can  see  the  indig- 
nation still  burning  in  this  book,  where  he  pic- 
tures the  fate  of  Jansen. 

The  whole  thing  is  treated  as  a  party  affair; 
it  is  a  matter  of  concern  that  the  Conservative 
papers  shall  not  make  capital  of  this  to  attack 
the  party,  and  therefore,  they  hastened  to  be 
rid  of  him.  The  Future  represented  him  as  a 
cunning  imposter  who  had  deceived  everyone. 
The  scandal  took  on  mighty  dimensions,  and, 
branded  as  a  criminal,  Jansen  is  driven  out 
into  wretchedness,  utterly  crushed.  The  party 
is  the  pearl  without  price  —  whatever  brings 
stain  upon  it,  must  be  sacrificed. 

Unscrupulous  party  opportunism  is  personi- 
fied in  the  editor,  Sokrates  Hector  Snorre  Kahrs. 
He  is  Bojer's  "perfect  type"  of  politician,  con- 
spicuously talented,  with  no  other  passion  than 
ambition,  and  with  an  unusually  cold-blooded 
scorn  of  mankind.  Every  man  was,  for  him, 
either  a  voter  or  one  who  could  influence  a  voter. 
He  knew  everybody  in  the  town,  their  family 
relations,  abilities,  possessions,  money,  vices,  am- 
bitions, and  he  knew  how  they  must  be  handled, 


54  JOHAN   BOJER 

whether  flattered  or  threatened.  He  had  a  well- 
organized  staff  of  political  job  hunters  under  him 
who,  like  subscription  collectors,  received  little 
commissions  for  each  vote  they  procured.  But 
his  most  powerful  tool  was  his  paper.  As  he 
would  make  speeches  on  everything  between 
heaven  and  earth,  from  poultry  breeding  and 
protective  tariff  to  love  affairs  and  Jesus  Christ 

—  so  he  treated  in  his  paper  all  themes  —  and 
used  them  for  political  purposes.  He  was  prac- 
tically omnipotent  in  the  town,  and  used  his 
power  without  scruple.  Pastor  Borg  understood 
this:  to  have  The  Future  against  one  —  that 
meant  an  empty  church  and  poor  collections, 
distractions  in  work,  insult,  and  scorn.  And  he 
adjusted  himself  to  the  situation  after  this,  and 
affected  a  reconciliation  with  the  paper.    Then 

—  behold!  the  church  grew  full  again.  Thanks 
to  newspaper  publicity,  the  offerings  increased, 
and  the  agitations  were  smoothed  down,  until 
the  sense  of  his  own  falsity  at  last  drove  him  to 
the  fjord. 

It  is  the  paper,  that  is  to  say,  Kahrs,  that 
brought  about  his  end,  and  so  with  one  and 
another.    The  town  acquired  his  stamp  by  de- 


SOCIAL   CRITICISM  55 

grees,  as  well  as  the  political  struggle  in  which 
he  was  leader. 

Kahrs  declared  that  a  powerful  wedge  must 
be  used  to  conquer  the  old  conservative  town. 
Platforms  and  things  of  that  sort  were  not 
enough.  It  would  be  far  better  to  bring  about 
a  little  personal  enmity  between  man  and  man. 

Success  marked  the  venture  in  the  House, 
and  at  election  time,  which,  every  three  years, 
descended  on  the  town  like  a  hail  storm  on 
summer  flowers.  A  sort  of  epidemic  of  bitter- 
ness and  hate  was  disseminated  from  man  to 
man.  The  political  difference  of  opinion  grew 
to  a  practical  burgher  war  in  miniature.  Old 
friendships  were  sundered,  family  divisions  arose, 
and  it  came  to  be  clenched  fist  against  clenched 
fist  in  every  sphere  of  action. 

"The  spirit  of  the  press,  with  its  whole  and 
half  lies,  roguery,  equivocal  words,  and  its  hasty, 
implacable  enmities  —  more  and  more,  like  a 
clammy,  winter  blight,  overlaid  all  true  and 
happy  community  life,  all  fresh  youth,  and  un- 
qualified gladness  and  contentment.  This 
smouldered  between  school  children  and  teach- 
ers, it  reeked  from  cellar  to  garret,  it  entered 


56  JOHAN   BOJER 

into  business  affairs,  it  knocked  down  banker 
and  credit,  it  reached  the  pastor  in  the  church, 
and  took  hold  of  the  affairs  of  the  Exchange. 
It  breathed  in  every  home,  and  even  stood  beside 
graves  and  cast  in  the  first  clump  of  earth  upon 
the  dead." 

Hegge  and  Samuel  Brandt  were  the  tragic 
political  figures,  Jansen  the  martyr,  and  Kahrs 
the  master. 

In  Moder  Lea  we  meet  the  fool  and 
rascal.  In  the  two  first  books,  politics  appear 
chiefly  as  enmities,  here  it  is  seen  chiefly  in  its 
public  characters :  its  two  representatives,  Hakon 
Hakonsen  and  Hans  Lunde,  are  both  impressed 
with  the  idea  that  their  milieu  lies  in  public  life 
rather  than  in  the  less  strenuous  pursuits  of  the 
private  individual. 

Already  in  Et  Folketog  Bojer  had  made  an 
attempt  to  exhibit  the  effect  of  this  craving  for 
publicity  on  a  man.  The  doctor  tells,  for  ex- 
ample, of  his  own  children:  "One  strives  at  art 
because  his  call  goes  in  the  direction  of  making 
sorry  verses  about  the  joy  of  life  and  freedom 
and  the  fatherland,  really  impossible  stuff,  I 
assure  you.    And  the  other  does  not  finish  at 


SOCIAL   CRITICISM  57 

the  technical  school  because  he  is  wasting  his 
time  and  money  on  something  erudite.  Is  it, 
however,  because  their  talent  drives  them?  Oh 
no.  The  fact  is  they  wish  to  be  famous,  they 
will  not  be  so  terribly  deadly  as  father  is.  Isn't 
it  natural  this  should  make  me  bitter  against 
the  age,  whose  fault  it  is?  For  my  two  are  not 
the  only  ones.  There  is  a  sickness  upon  the  young 
people  of  today,  a  sickness  which  our  public  life 
has  bred.  Now,  I  myself,  played  a  violin  in- 
differently when  I  was  a  young  chap,  you  remem- 
ber that  yourself.  But  I  did  it  entirely  in  secret 
and  because  music  then  had  the  most  interest  for 
me.  Now,  every  little  aptitude  must  be  placed 
on  exhibition  and  developed  into  the  chief  busi- 
ness of  life;  people  want  to  be  famous.  To 
create  something  actually  worth  while,  to  please 
father  and  mother,  and  sacrifice  a  little  fame 
to  gladden  them,  oh,  no  —  don't  ask  that. 
Youth  has  too  much  talent,  too  many  'calls,'  to 
work,  and  is  ambitious,  for  the  fatherland's  sake, 
to  unite  in  a  peaceful  and  fruitful  work.  The 
young  people  realize  that,  in  order  to  be  famous, 
one  must  be  either  an  artist  or  a  politician  in 
this  country." 


58  JOHAN   BOJER 

The  same  trend  toward  publicity  we  see  in 
Anders  Hegge  with  his  "call"  to  be  editor,  to 
found  an  alliance  of  the  youth  of  the  country  for 
the  doing  of  something.  And  we  see  it  again 
in  Jens  Nordseth,  though,  be  it  admitted,  in 
somewhat  more  complicated  fashion.  He  de- 
serts his  love  because  he  wants  to  be  an  artist 
and  so  cannot  be  married  to  a  peasant  girl, 
and  when  his  home  is  ruined  and  desolate,  and 
his  parents  have  been  obliged  to  take  a  position 
as  gate-keeper  to  the  farm's  new  owners,  this 
ruin  is  for  him  only  a  theme  —  for  a  painting 
that  may  make  him  famous. 

In  Hakon  Hakorfsen's  and  Hans  Lunde's  char- 
acters this  idea  is  developed  yet  further.  They 
both  suffered  from  a  distinct  misapprehension 
of  the  difference  between  what  they  are  and 
what  they  think  they  are,  and  what  they  strive 
for  is  not  to  produce  something  actual,  which 
would  bring  them  real  reason  for  pride,  but 
rather  to  make  themselves  a  subject  of  public 
talk. 

Hakon  Hakonsen  is  the  worse  of  the  two.  All 
his  life  was  absorbed  in  winning  recognition  and 
pleasure.    In  his  youth  he  had  tried  one  thing 


SOCIAL   CRITICISM  .      59 

and  another;  spiritual  life,  art,  religion,  anar- 
chism, but  recognition  for  his  talent  had  not 
come,  and  he  was  at  a  loss  to  know  what  expe- 
dient to  attempt  by  which  to  become  a  great 
man.  At  this  juncture  he  discovered  that  poli- 
tics was  the  way.  He  fastened  on  "Norway" 
and  "cut  his  cloth  according  to  his  pattern." 
He  worked  for  the  peasants  that  they  might  "call 
their  souls  their  own"  —  or  he  talked  town  proj- 
ects and  spoke  platitudes  about  culture  just 
as  he  might  mention  that  the  wind  was  blow- 
ing. All  the  while,  he  was  going  about  pretend- 
ing to  say  something  bold  and  profound  and 
looking  for  recognition,  but  because  of  his  merely 
coquettish  desire  to  please,  he  rigged  himself  out 
theatrically  like  a  peasant,  in  real  museum 
clothes,  and  like  a  "man  of  culture"  in  elegant 
dress.    He  ended  as  a  minister  of  the  church. 

Hans  Lunde  is  somewhat  more  complex.  He 
was  poorly  brought  up,  that  is  to  say,  even  as 
a  child  he  was  allowed  to  follow  his  own  incli- 
nation, which  is  to  avoid  all  hard  things.  Not 
unlike  Peer  Gynt,  he  constantly  allowed  his 
thoughts  to  wander  to  something  amusing  in- 
stead of  using  to  advantage  the  talents  he  had. 


60  JOHAN   BOJER 

At  the  age  of  twenty  Hans  had  failed  three 
times  in  the  grammar  school  examinations.  His 
people  then  wanted  him  to  go  to  an  agricultural 
school,  but  he  had  a  wide-awake  instinct  for 
what  would  suit  him  best,  and  went  to  an  art 
school  instead. 

Like  Anders  Hegge  he  started  a  club  in  order 
to  have  a  place  to  talk.  Because  he  had  dis- 
covered, "a  person  can  get  out  of  any  difficulty, 
if  only  he  can  speak  for  himself,"  and  that  it 
was  an  excellent  way  to  talk  round  a  thing 
instead  of  really  delving  deep  into  it. 

The  three  great  experiences  life  brought  him, 
led  him  all  the  farther  along  this  same  course. 

The  first  one  was  that  he  discovered  that  his 
mother  was  in  love  with  the  Swedish  helper 
on  her  farm.  In  the  beginning,  Hans  was  in 
doubt  —  did  not  know  what  to  do;  then  he 
fancied  himself  killing  the  Swede  and  heard 
himself  making  a  brilliant  apologetic  discourse 
to  the  judge  and  becoming  famous.  It  came 
finally  to  him  that  he  had  experienced  some- 
thing wonderful  that  would  develop  him,  per- 
haps make  him  a  great  writer,  and  bring  him 
public  applause  and  wide  fame. 


SOCIAL   CRITICISM  61 

"As  soon  as  he  thought  of  this  he  sat  down 
with  pencil  and  note  book  and  tried  to  set  down 
his  grief  in  a  couple  of  verses  in  the  national 
tongue."  Several  days  later,  the  youth  had 
thought  of  a  number  of  plans,  which  he  greatly 
admired  himself  for,  but  which  he  delayed  put- 
ting into  execution. 

Then  the  Swede  killed  his  father  —  appar- 
ently through  an  accident  when  driving  —  and 
later  married  his  mother,  and  Hans,  who  was 
the  only  one  that  knew  the  dreadful  truth,  stood 
in  Hamlet's  position.  He  decided  to  devote  his 
life  to  having  the  crime  disclosed  and  the  mur- 
derer punished.  But  this  would  occasion  con- 
siderable hard  work,  and  so  he  finds  very  soon 
all  sorts  of  fine  excuses  for  putting  this  off. 

The  two  men  then  learn  to  live  beside  each 
other  on  the  farm,  each  with  his  guilty  conscious- 
ness —  the  Swede  because  of  the  crime  he  had 
committed,  and  Hans  because  of  the  accusation 
he  could  not  force  himself  to  make. 

And  what  is  it  Ase  says  in  Peer  Gynt: 

It  is  ghastly  to  see  one's  evil  destiny  under 
one's  eyes, 


62  JOHAN   BOJER 

And  therefore  will  a  man  gladly  shake  off  his 

sorrows 
And  try  his  best  to  get  away  from  his  thoughts 

of  himself. 
One  tries  brandy,  another,  lies  — 

So  it  happened  in  this  case;  the  Swede  took 
to  drinking  cognac  (later,  to  religion)  and  Hans 
to  fine,  stirring  words.  Hans  had  to  fight  a 
constantly  harder  fight  to  keep  self-accusation 
under.  He,  therefore,  made  speeches  about  eter- 
nal peace,  world-revolution,  newly-established 
Norway,  and  King  Sverre's  legacy  to  youth. 
There  is  nothing  that  so  shuts  one's  mind  to 
himself  as  talking  of  others.  Hans  became  a 
great  speaker  and  intoxicated  himself  both  by 
his  own  words  and  by  the  approval  that  streamed 
toward  him.  Even  the  pastor  was  finally  so 
impressed  by  the  oratory  of  Hans,  that  he  had 
him  sent  as  agent  on  a  royal  commission  that  de- 
manded profound  wisdom  in  its  discharge. 

Then  it  happened  that  the  wife  of  the  golden- 
tongued  speaker,  who  understood  the  situation, 
and  once  had  believed  in  his  "mission,"  and 
wished  to  help  him  to  perform  it,  came  to  know, 


SOCIAL   CRITICISM  63 

to  the  uttermost,  his  equivocations  and  indeci- 
sion; and  for  fear  that  their  child  should  grow 
up  like  his  father,  she  killed  it.  To  the  judge 
she  would  make  no  other  explanation  than  that 
the  father  was  a  coward. 

She  is  sentenced  to  fifteen  years  in  prison, 
while  Hans  is  too  weak  to  try  to  save  her  by 
any  excuse.  Again  comes  the  struggle  between 
his  "two  selves";  his  own  judgment  of  himself, 
and  other  people's  judgment  of  him.  Again  it 
happened  that  his  evil  self  conquered  because 
of  people's  sympathy  and  respect  for  him  —  due 
to  his  fine  speech-making.  He  had  thrust  upon 
him  a  halo  of  martyrdom  because  of  his  wife's 
crime.  It  heightened  wonderfully  his  popu- 
larity, and  he  rose  higher  and  steadily  higher 
through  the  humbug  of  people's  sentimentality. 

Thus  Hans  became  a  prominent  person  in 
Parliament.  None  could  get  such  a  sweep  of 
the  ballots  as  he,  and  obtain  exactly  what  he 
wished.  "Then,  if  they  tried  to  get  a  clear 
understanding  of  things,  he  blinded  them  with 
emotion;  if  one  asked  for  figures  and  facts,  he 
confused  their  minds  by  gripping  speeches  about 
Norway  and  the  good  wife! 


64  JOHAN    BOJER 

"There  began  to  be  a  smattering  of  Hans 
Lunde  in  every  man's  life.  One  met  him  in  the 
laws,  which  were  enacted  or  repealed  through- 
out the  land,  he  popped  up  in  the  schools,  in  the 
courts,  at  the  University,  in  business,  in  union- 
politics —  everywhere  one  could  realize  by  the 
accumulated  mass  of  words  and  pity  that  Hans 
Lunde  had  had  a  finger  in  the  pie,  and  had  made 
a  speech  about  that  wife  of  his." 


Ill 

POLITICS   AND   AN   AUTHOR 

IF  we  try  to  bring  together  the  thoughts  on 
politics  and  its  effects,  which  Bojer  expresses 
in  these  three  books,  we  see  by  his  socially  crit- 
ical sight  pictures,  the  political  game  as  a  source 
of  enmities  and  a  means  of  financial  ruin. 
Small  feuds  are  blown  into  big  ones,  new  ones 
arise,  whole  parishes  and  hamlets  are  torn  by 
ruinous  animosities,  and  weak  men  are  trampled 
heartlessly  down.  At  the  same  time,  politics 
take  up  the  life  and  thought  of  those  who  should 
be  leaders  in  the  economic  and  industrial  devel- 
opment. So,  they  neglect  their  work  and  have 
no  time  to  start  anything  new.  Universal  stag- 
nation and  economic  wretchedness  are  the  result. 

But  beyond  and  deeper  than  this  social  conse- 
quence of  the  political  struggle,  lie  the  influences 
of  politics  on  the  individual  character  —  there 
are,  especially,  two  of  these. 

First,  politics  force  men  to  compromise  with 
their  conscience.  Peter  Hegge  illustrates  this  par- 
as 


66  JOHAN   BOJER 

ticularly.  He  wants  to  wash  his  conscience  clean 
by  great  and  pure  acts  when  he  first  gets  into 
Parliament.  But  to  get  there  he  has  to  make 
use  of  the  voters  and  of  the  party,  and,  in  both 
ways,  he  becomes  dependent  and  forfeits  his 
freedom.  To  attain  a  great  and  good  end  he 
has  to  use  small  and  petty  means,  and  that  leaves 
its  mark  on  him,  so  that  even  his  abilities  be- 
come dulled  in  the  process. 

Secondly,  politics  is  the  chief  port  that  men 
seek  to  reach,  when  they  run  away  from  personal 
responsibility.  Of  this,  Hans  Lunde  is  the  most 
typical  expression  when  he  shakes  free  from 
every  action  and  grasps  at  a  phrase  instead, 
when  he  feels  himself  persecuted  instead  of 
responsible,  when  he  smothers  his  conscience  in 
a  debauch  of  great  words,  —  then  is  he  the  repre- 
sentative of  a  whole  group  avoiding  responsi- 
bility. "Those  who  would  meanly  lie  down  in 
dirt  and  rags  were  there  ever  any  self-excuse 
to  find,  and  no  powerful  pressure  to  make  them 
rise  again.  They  drugged  their  hurts,  their  hid- 
den shames  for  the  sake  of  the  martyr's  glory, 
intoxicated  themselves,  and  rejoiced  in  vague 
ideas  of  reform,  which  left  them  free  while  put- 


POLITICS   AND   AN   AUTHOR      67 

ting  all  responsibility  on  some  remote  fabulous 
creature,  on  Society,  the  State,  the  Lord,  Des- 
tiny, or  some  other  far-off  thing,  so  long  as  they 
themselves  escape." 

But,  in  essence,  the  two  things  are  the  same. 
Peter  Hegge,  who  compromises  with  his  con- 
science for  the  sake  of  the  party  and  the  votes, 
and  Hans  Lunde,  who  flies  from  responsibility 
to  empty  words,  resemble  one  another  in  one 
thing:  they  have  not  strength  of  character 
enough  to  find  their  center  of  gravity  in  them- 
selves. They  are  weak  men,  who  have  not 
strength  enough  to  stand  alone,  and,  without  de- 
pendence on  some  one  else,  do  what  they  feel 
is  right.  That  this  is  so,  we  shall  see  clearly, 
when  we  examine  "the  dark  characters"  in 
Bojer's  later  books,  all  of  whom  have  been 
endowed  with  the  same  stamp.  This  appears 
immediately  from  the  contrasts  in  even  these 
three  books,  where  we  have  not  yet  examined 
the  bright  side.  In  contrast  to  weakness  and 
decadence,  Bojer  opposes  naturally  the  positive 
upbuilding  work  of  people  of  will  power,  who 
take  responsibility  upon  themselves  for  their  own 
acts  and  are  independent  of  others'  judgment. 


68  JOHAN   BOJER 

In  Et  Folketog  the  positive  side  is  not  very 
much  in  the  foreground.  This  appears  chiefly 
in  the  strong  prominence  of  what  is  neglected, 
but,  then,  also,  in  the  picture  of  Gunhild's  loyal 
work,  in  the  doctor's  arguments,  and  in  the 
schoolmaster,  Trang,  who  hasn't  time  for  politics 
because  he  is  studying  the  ant. 

But,  already,  in  Den  Evige  Krig,  it  is  suffi- 
ciently clear  that  the  contrast  is  growing  plain. 
Even  in  the  beginning,  when  Samuel  Brandt  de- 
termines to  go  into  the  party  struggle,  he  be- 
comes a  candidate  against  the  will  of  his  family, 
who  are  "capable,  solid,  conservative  men,  who 
worked  and  achieved  results."  This  opposition 
comes  to  a  point  in  the  great  scene  with  the 
father,  to  whose  clear  sight  politics  appear  as 
opposed  to  honest,  sterling  work.  "See,  if 
everybody  was  a  source  of  pride  to  his  family," 
says  he,  "don't  you  understand  that  the  coun- 
try's affairs  would  straighten  out  themselves? 
When  the  estate  came  into  my  hands  it  was 
loaded  with  debt.  Now  it  is  paid  for  and  I 
have  made  great  additions  to  it.  The  father- 
land, you  say?  Well,  I  have  cleared  five  hun- 
dred acres  of  land!" 


POLITICS   AND   AN   AUTHOR      69 

The  same  opposition  appears  in  Jansen's  life. 
In  the  period  when  he  had  withdrawn  from  pol- 
itics his  home  began  to  blossom;  he  is  full  of 
the  joy  of  work  and  one  sees  that  his  children, 
even  as  small  students,  understand  the  blessing 
of  independent  creative  work. 

But  it  is  chiefly  Samuel  Brandt's  brother, 
Carsten,  and  his  friend  the  painter,  Bratt,  who  in 
Den  Evige  Krig  stand  as  representatives  of  the 
positive  values,  and  it  is  clear  even  as  early  as 
in  this  book,  that  the  "work"  Bojer  admires 
is  of  a  particular  sort.  His  workmen,  so  to  say, 
are  all  types  of  "clean  youth;  possessed  of  inde- 
pendent ideas  which  are  born  in  the  brain  and 
nourished  in  the  heart"  —  and  who  have  reli- 
gious perspective. 

Carsten  was,  at  first,  a  theologian,  but  that 
wasn't  a  success,  and  then  he  became  an  engineer 
and  "used  his  ideas  of  eternity  in  practical 
work."  He  invents  a  boring  machine,  and  his 
life  work  becomes  railroad  construction,  and 
the  work  becomes  his  religion.  It  is  really  the 
struggle  between  light  and  darkness,  a  new  trade 
route,  a  new  bank,  railroad,  road,  steamship 
route,  school  —  they  are  all  practical  applica- 


70  JOHAN   BOJER 

tions  of  religion  and  brotherly  love,  and,  par- 
ticularly, does  this  hold  true  in  respect  of  a 
mountainous  country  like  Norway.  These  are 
the  beliefs  also  of  King  Haakon  himself.  They 
will  fill  the  land  with  light,  and  drive  out  the 
evil  powers  of  the  trolls. 

Bratt  is  of  the  same  way  of  thinking.  He 
also  believes  it,  in  a  way,  religious  to  do  creative 
things.  He  is  not  a  painter,  as  he  thinks  of  it, 
but  a  priest,  and  will  do  honor  to  God's  will, 
until  he  finds  Him,  himself.  There  is  really 
no  difficulty  in  seeing  the  family  resemblance 
between  this  engineer  and  this  painter,  and  a 
number  of  Bojer's  later  "bright"  characters  — 
like  the  young  Peer  Holm,  of  The  Great  Hunger, 
who  believes  himself  a  sort  of  descendant  of 
Prometheus. 

It  is  true  of  both  Et  Folketog  and  Den  Evige 
Krig  that,  viewed  as  problem  novels,  they  are 
works  of  censure  and  their  force  is  destructive. 
The  positive  ideal  appears  only  in  glimpses. 
It  has  no  chance  to  live  an  independent  life,  and 
in  reality,  serves  only  to  increase  the  violence  of 
the  attack. 


POLITICS    AND   AN   AUTHOR       71 

In  Moder  Lea  it  is  quite  different.  Here  the 
contrast  is  sharp  and  clearly  outlined,  and  the 
accent  is  laid  on  the  constructive,  not  on  the  de- 
structive. This  appears  even  in  the  fact  that 
it  is  Moder  Lea,  and  not  Hans  Lunde,  who  has 
given  the  book  its  name. 

Mother  Lea  and  her  children  are,  however,  not 
alone  in  possessing  the  author's  sympathy;  they 
have  to  share  it  with  Hans  Lunde's  wife,  Inga. 
In  seeking,  however,  for  an  absolute  contrast 
to  Hans  Lunde,  there  appear  two  characters  that 
fulfil  these  requirements.  One  is  Inga.  She 
had  married  Hans  Lunde  because  she  believed 
in  his  "call"  —  his  life's  great  task  to  expose  his 
father's  murderer,  and  to  see  justice  done,  and 
because  she  herself  saw  it  as  her  mission  to  sacri- 
fice herself  in  helping  him  to  do  this.  Later, 
when  she  came  to  understand  him  in  all  his 
weakness,  she  despised  him  to  such  an  extent 
that  she  could  not  bear  the  shame  of  having  had 
a  child  by  such  a  coward.  She  thought  with 
horror  of  what  a  child  might  become  who  had 
such  a  father.  To  make  reparation  for  the 
crime  that  she  considered  she  had  committed  in 
bringing  him  into  the  world  she  killed  the  child 


72  JOHAN   BOJER 

and  took  her  punishment  with  face  uplifted,  as 
one  who  had  fulfilled  a  pledge. 

The  other  character  that  presents  itself  in 
stern  contrast  with  Hans  Lunde  the  victim  of 
the  destructive  force  is  Mother  Lea.  Her  hus- 
band was  of  the  same  mold  as  Hans  Lunde, 
and  she  could  not  imagine  anything  more  ter- 
rible than  that  her  children  should  grow  up  to 
resemble  their  father,  who  is  dead  when  the  story- 
opens.  This  is  the  difference  between  her  moral 
problem  and  that  of  Inga.  The  children's  in- 
heritance from  their  father  does  not  seem  to  be 
more  than  what  can  be  overcome  by  training. 
Inga  would  like  to  bar  Hans  Lunde  out  in  order 
to  wipe  out  the  blot  of  him  on  their  child's  life, 
but  she  can  only  accomplish  this  by  killing  the 
child.  Mother  Lea,  on  the  contrary,  is  so 
fortunately  placed  that  she  can  accomplish  the 
same  thing  by  training  her  children  to  be  a  liv- 
ing protest  against  the  entire  character  of  their 
father. 

The  farm  of  Lea's  father  has  been  impover- 
ished and  all  but  ruined  that  her  husband  may 
have  money  to  pursue  his  political  career.  Upon 
his  death,  however,  Lea  manages  to  keep  the 


POLITICS   AND   AN   AUTHOR      73 

farm  and  begins  the  task  of  building  it  up  again. 
Success  crowns  her  efforts  because  she  does  not 
flinch  from  any  trouble,  and  because  she  depends 
on  herself  alone,  desiring  to  be  independent  of 
all  other  people. 

Lea  wants,  first  of  all,  that  her  children  shall 
become  efficient  men,  for  "she  understood  that 
will  power  is  the  strongest  rampart  to  character  «—~ 
and  that,  without  will,  there  is  no  safeguard, 
no  sense  of  responsibility,  no  ability  to  resist. 
No  one  could  preserve  an  individual  conviction 
without  the  ability  to  form  one.  The  weak  lie 
themselves  out  of  difficulty,  the  strong-willed 
have  the  strength  to  be  upright." 

The  mother  taught  them  that  their  proper  #*~ 
value  was  no  greater  than  what  they  had 
achieved,  and  every  time  something  failed  of 
success,  there  was  a  sense  of  stain  upon  them, 
until  they  had  brought  it  to  success.  At  the 
same  time  she  suggested,  in  every  case,  that 
which  had  been  omitted  in  the  former  instance, 
and  opened  the  way  for  them  to  progress.  She 
gave  them  a  goal  that  demanded  of  them  inde- 
pendent action  for  its  attainment. 

They  began  to  work  as  it  were  in  their  play, 


74  JOHAN   BOJER 

but  learned  easily,  from  the  beginning,  to  look- 
out for  themselves  and  never  give  up  half  way. 
First  they  made  their  own  toys,  then  their  own 
implements,  and  then  discovered  improvements. 
All  that  they  made  was,  in  the  beginning,  called 
forth  by  the  need  of  the  moment;  they  were 
necessary  things,  whose  value,  in  use,  was  imme- 
diately put  to  proof.  Then  the  nursery  was 
exchanged  for  the  work  shop  and  the  smithy; 
these,  in  turn,  for  the  factory  and  the  laboratory, 
and  the  activities  constantly  grew  in  importance. 
Thus  these  young  men  grew  up  as  ideal  work- 
men. Halvard,  the  eldest,  farmed  and,  natu- 
rally, had  helpers.  The  same  principles  that 
Mother  Lea  had  used  in  bringing  up  her  children, 
Halvard  employed  with  his  workmen.  It 
seemed  to  him  that  most  men  went  about  with 
dead  minds.  They  learned  in  school  to  wrap 
themselves  in  a  maze  of  other  people's  thoughts, 
others'  beliefs,  others'  convictions,  and  under- 
neath all  this  haze,  their  own  actual  personal 
thought  and  nature  lay  like  a  still-born  child. 
But  he  believed  that  "even  the  weakest  man 
must  have  had,  in  his  youth,  an  ideal  to  be  able 
to  be  of  independent  value."    And,  quite  like 


POLITICS    AND    AN   AUTHOR       75 

John  Ruskin,  he  sought  to  develop  this  through 
creative  work.  Ruskin's  central  idea  is,  prac- 
tically, that  unhappiness  in  modern  society  is 
caused  because  men  are  not  happy  enough  in 
their  work,  because  they  must  work  like  slaves 
instead  of  creating  like  free  persons.  And  a 
quite  similar  idea  will  one  find  in  Bojer.  "What  ~ 
use  either  of  reform  or  religion  so  long  as  men 
do  not  love  their  work,  which  they  ought  to  be 
able  to  put  their  soul  into.  Men  must  work  like 
slaves  to  create  and  then  the  God  in  them  will 
be  awakened,  and  they  will  be  lifted  above  them- 
selves."  This  is  the  principle  Halvard  applied 
in  his  work,  and  he  and  his  brothers  succeeded 
in  creating  joyous,  personally-interested  work- 
men out  of  the  youth  of  the  district. 

Also,  the  other  brother,  the  smith  Olaf,  who 
became  an  engineer,  the  carpenter  Erik,  who 
became  a  sculptor,  the  scientific  Henrik,  and 
the  sisters  Johanna  and  Hedvig,  who  did  weav- 
ing and  embroidering  —  all  are  shown  as  ideal  •» 
workers,  who  begin  small  and  end  great,  and 
who  look  with  a  religious  attitude  upon  their 
work,  and  are  wholly  absorbed  in  it. 

Then,  however,  comes  death  into  the  midst 


76  JOHAN    BOJER 

of  the  little  family  group  and  steals  away  the 
youngest,  Hedvig.  And  for  a  while  it  seems  as 
though  they  would  be  beaten  to  the  earth  by 
that  old  query:  "What  use  is  there  in  all  this, 
since  we  must  die? "  But  they  are  strong  enough 
to  rise  even  above  death.  The  fear  of  death  is 
only  the  painful  consciousness  of  life's  being 
over,  and  the  only  remedy  for  this  fear  is  an 
upstanding  spirit.  The  weak  and  useless  die  — 
that  is  their  penalty,  but  the  worth-while  en- 
y       dure  and  do  good  for  that  which  comes  after. 

In  Et  Folketog  there  are  two  scenes  —  which 
particularly  deserve  notice  because  here  one  sees 
Bojer's  characters  in  their  first  rather  than  their 
second  cinematic  form. 

Bojer  wishes  to  give  as  widely  comprehensive 
a  picture  of  the  parish  as  possible,  but  this 
demands  a  picture  of  the  fishing  industry.  If 
now  such  a  picture  were  to  appear  in  a  natural 
manner  in  a  realistic  novel,  one  or  other  of 
the  people  concerned  would  oversee  or  take  part 
in  a  concrete  fishery  with  a  definite  location. 

This  is,  however,  not  the  method  that  our 
author  uses.    He  paints  a  fishery  in  general 


POLITICS    AND    AN    AUTHOR       77 

terms,  without  definite  characters,  and  that  there 
is  no  talk  of  a  single  concrete  fishery,  but  that 
the  whole  is  quite  abstract,  is  emphasized  by 
the  author's  use  of  general,  guarded,  or  hesitat- 
ing expression:  "Perhaps  they  were  then  pray- 
ing for  him  there."  "But  then  a  steamboat 
might  show  its  red  eye  from  out  the  fog,  or, 
perhaps,  it  would  bear  straight  down  upon  the 
net."  "But,  if  all  went  well,  then  we  may  be 
sure,  at  dawn,  they  weighed  anchor." 

In  the  realistic  novel  the  practice  is,  certainly, 
either  that  the  author  tells  of  a  definite  situa- 
tion and  person,  and  tries  to  present  to  the 
reader  the  illusion  that  the  events  have  actually 
occurred,  and  the  people  have  lived,  and  that  he 
—  the  author  —  knew  them.  But  here  we  see  a 
complete  break,  with  every  device  for  creating 
illusion.  We  hear  about  indefinite  characters, 
who  at  an  indefinite  time,  possibly,  may  have 
lived,  and  could  have  done  this  and  that. 

The  next  stage,  where  the  picture  has  be- 
come more  concrete,  we  get  in  the  picture 
of  the  typical  poor  man.  And  here  the 
picture  is  set  in  the  present,  and  the 
whole  is  more  definite.    It  is  a  single  peasant 


78  JOHAN    BOJER 

that  is  talked  of,  and  we  are  told  that  he  must 
sell  his  horse,  and  even  must  pull  the  seed  him- 
self in  order  to  use  it,  and  we  see  how  he  can 
not  take  any  rest  when  he  gets  home,  but  must 
carry  on  the  struggle,  and  cut  wood  and  get 
tinder. 

But  it  is  not  a  particular  peasant  that  is  told 
of  —  it  is  the  peasant.  We  don't  hear  what  his 
name  is;  we  don't  meet  him  later,  and  he  has 
no  effect  on  the  development  of  the  action.  He 
is  an  example;  or,  if  one  likes  to  call  him  so, 
an  illustration.  The  author  wants  to  paint  the 
severe  struggle  of  the  peasant,  and  he  does  so 
by  this  method,  putting  into  a  single  portrait  all 
of  the  features  to  serve  as  a  type. 

From  this  to  the  next  stage  the  distance  is  not 
far.  We  meet  a  group  of  characters  who,  quite 
certainly,  have  individual  names,  and  dwelling 
places  and  take  part  in  the  action,  but  who,  in 
reality,  are  only  personifications  —  who  have, 
as  their  function,  to  illustrate  the  author's  ideas. 

We  hear,  for  example,  in  Den  Evige  Krig  of 
the  position  of  the  church  and  the  army  in 
the  radical  party.  Powerfully  and  mercilessly 
are  shown  how  the  first  natural  hostility  ends  in 


POLITICS   AND   AN   AUTHOR       79 

reconciliation  and  united  work  for  mutual  bene- 
fit. But,  as  Den  Evige  Krig  is  not  a  debate  but 
a  novel,  the  author  cannot  use  really  historic 
and  recognized  developments;  he  must  clothe 
them  in  flesh  and  blood,  and  thus  are  born 
Pastor  Berg  and  Captain  Bull. 

Of  similar  origin  are  Mrs.  Ramm  and  Editor 
Kahrs.  Instead  of  saying  that  the  woman 
question  is  ludicrous,  and  motivating  the  state- 
ment with  a  group  of  examples,  the  author 
gathers  all  the  ludicrousness  and  pettiness  and 
endows  a  character  with  it  who  can  play  a  role 
in  a  novel.  And  instead  of,  or  to  put  it  more 
exactly,  besides  portraying  the  influence  of  the 
press  on  people's  lives,  a  personification,  Editor 
Kahrs,  is  created,  about  whom  the  picture 
centers. 

Also  the  laborer  Jansen  serves,  despite  the 
fact  that  he  is  partially  drawn  from  a  model,  in 
a  high  degree,  as  an  illustration.  First  he  illus- 
trates, by  his  development,  hatred  against  the 
social  system,  the  rising  up  against  unfair 
treatment,  and  then  the  power  of  love  and 
friendliness  to  turn  a  fanatic,  full  of  hate,  into 
a  happy  and  useful  man.    And,  finally,  he  illus- 


80  JOHAN   BOJER 

trates  by  his  fate  society's  —  and  especially  that 
portion  of  society  excited  by  party  strife  — 
brutal  heartlessness  for  one  who  has  been  rash 
enough  to  expose  himself  because  he  took  empty 
cant  seriously.  One  cannot  help  being  reminded 
of  Victor  Hugo's  Les  Miserables,  where  the 
galley  slave  Jean  Valjean,  in  quite  similar  man- 
ner, on  account  of  the  bishop's  friendliness,  is 
saved  to  society,  and  as  Pere  Madeleine,  be- 
comes altogether  a  suitable  priest,  until  he  con- 
fesses who  he  is,  and  is  heartlessly  sent  back  to 
the  galleys. 

~  If  one  runs  through  Bojer's  characters  and 
attempts  to  find  the  connecting  link  among  them, 
he  will  see  that  most  of  them  are  made  on 
similar  lines.  The  kernel  in  them  is  an  idea  — 
be  it  either  moral  or  psychological  —  which  has 
caught  the  author's  attention,  and  which  has 
become  living  for  him  in  a  human  character. 
In  so  saying  we  do  not,  of  course,  mean  to  sug- 
gest anything  belittling  of  Bojer's  power  to  por- 
tray men.  It  is  true  of  a  great  many  of  the 
most  valuable  characters  in  the  literature  of  the 
world,  that  they,  in  similar  manner,  to  a  certain 
degree,  can  be  used  as  illustrations.    What 


POLITICS   AND   AN   AUTHOR      81 

decides  their  value  is  unquestionably  the  degree 
to  which  the  author  has  had  the  ability  to  give 
his  characters  life. 

When  one  compares  two  characters  such  as 
Peter  Hegge  and  his  son  Anders,  it  is  easy  to 
see  the  difference.  Their  origin  is  assuredly  the 
same;  they  can  both  be  used  as  personifications, 
but  Peter  Hegge  is  a  living  thing,  Anders  is  not. 
Because  Anders  is  nothing  more  than  a  personi- 
fication; he,  literally,  does  not  open  his  mouth 
without  saying,  "see  who  I  am."  We  discover 
quickly  that  he  is  a  vain  fool,  but  besides  this, 
we  know  nothing  of  him;  there  is  nothing  which 
differentiates  him  from  any  other  peasant  youth 
who  believes  himself  born  to  something  great, 
and  imagines  himself  able  to  become  this  with- 
out doing  anything.  Peter  Hegge,  on  the  con- 
trary, we  have  an  opportunity  to  see  from  several 
points  of  view.  We  realize  that  he  is  not  only 
a  politician,  but  also  a  peasant  and  the  father 
of  a  family.  We  see  him  swayed  by  various 
feelings  and  impulses,  and  besides  the  traits  that 
render  him  typical,  we  learn  to  know  others  that 
are  his  alone,  and  that  distinguish  him  from 
other  peasant  politicians,  whose  destinies  per- 


82  JOHAN   BOJER 

haps  are  similar;  and,  at  the  same  time  that 
we  see  mistakes  that  he  makes  in  politics,  on 
the  farm,  and  in  his  home,  we  realize  also  the 
difficulties  that  beset  him,  and  that  rise  higher 
and  higher  till  they  overwhelm  him. 
-  This  is  the  one  method  by  which  an  author 
can  give  a  character  life  —  by  making  him  many- 
sided  and  composite,  and  by  bringing  out  his 
connection  and  interaction  with  his  environment. 
This  same  thing  can  be  made  clear  in  an- 
other way.  Why  Berg  really  is  plainly  more 
living  than  Kahrs,  is  not  only  and  not  first  and 
foremost,  because  he  is  a  little  more  individual- 
ized, but  it  is,  especially,  because  the  author  — 
and  through  him,  the  reader  also  —  feels  more 
strongly  for  him.  His  struggle  and  his  wavering 
is  not  so  strongly  individual,  but  the  portrayal,  in 
its  stead,  has  strength  enough  to  grip  us,  so  that 
the  struggle  and  wavering  emotional  attitude  be- 
come living  for  us.  Somewhat  similarly  this  is 
true,  at  times,  of  Jansen  —  especially  after  the 
great  catastrophe.  Bojer  is  too  great  a  writer 
to  let  such  moving  material,  with  the  personal 
indignation  lying  back  of  it,  remain  wholly  and 
constantly  dead  under  his  hand.    Despite  the 


POLITICS   AND   AN   AUTHOR      83 

finger  pointing,  there  are  moments  when  one  is 
absolutely  carried  away. 

The  difference  between  Kahrs  and  Karsten 
Brandt  is  even  more  characteristic.  Karsten  is 
almost  as  one-sidedly  treated  as  the  editor.  We 
know  nothing  much  more  of  him  than  that  he 
is  an  engineer  who  believes  religiously  in  his 
cultural  mission.  The  portrait  is,  in  nowise,  in- 
dividual, but  the  author  has,  to  that  degree, 
lived  through  his  eyes  and,  to  that  degree,  felt 
with  his  feelings  and  impulses  that  he  makes 
him  live,  regardless  of  anything  in  the  book. 

One  of  the  most  conspicuous  results  of  Bojer's 
disposition  towards  this  personifying  is  that 
dimensions  are  easily  magnified.  Just  because 
Kahrs  is  not  a  man,  as  has  been  remarked, 
but  a  constructed  personification  of  an  idea,  both 
his  abilities  and  his  importance  are  overdrawn. 
No  real  editor  would  be  able  to  be,  to  such  a 
degree,  ubiquitous  as  he  is,  and  however  great 
the  power  of  the  press,  yet  such  an  attack  of 
nightmare  in  a  whole  parish  as  this,  which  is 
here  told  of,  seems,  certainly  in  the  same  way, 
impossible  in  reality.  The  contrast  between  the 
three  periods  in  Pastor  Berg's  life  —  before  the 


84  JOHAN    BOJER 

radicals  come  into  power,  during  the  struggle, 
and  after  the  reconciliation  —  is  also  too  glar- 
ing to  be  worthy  of  belief.  And,  without  want- 
ing to  say  anything  good  about  feminine  gossip, 
one  must  certainly  admit  that  Mrs.  Ramm  is 
several  degrees  worse  than  real  life  is  likely  to 
produce. 

Very  strongly  marked  is  this  overdrawing  in 
Moder  Lea.  Both  she  and,  particularly,  her 
sons  surpass,  by  far,  the  limits  of  ordinary 
humanity.  That  educator  of  man,  that  engi- 
neer and  artist  and  man  of  science  —  they  are 
not  men  but  heroes.  And  the  portrayal  of  their 
development,  from  the  time  when  they  play  their 
first  games  till  their  work  spreads  out  in  its 
influence  over  the  whole  world,  is  not  a  novel 
but  a  myth.  Their  energy,  the  extent  of  their 
ability,  their  success,  the  method  by  which  they 
overcome  nature  and  the  elements,  their  music, 
their  beauty  —  all  alike  are  on  a  much  higher 
plane  than  that  of  the  average  man.  It  is  im- 
possible to  think  of  them  as  living  beings  in  a 
valley  amidst  the  Norwegian  mountains;  they 
have  only  one  real  home  place  —  in  the  au- 
thor's imagination. 


POLITICS   AND   AN   AUTHOR      85 

Now  there  is  obviously  none  that  would  want 
to  forbid  an  author  writing  myths,  or  fairy  tales, 
or  stories  of  Utopias,  but  when  this  is  introduced 
into  a  realistic  novel,  the  framework  is  shattered, 
and  there  is  an  element  of  uncertainty  and  lack 
of  form  that  impair  the  value  of  the  book. 

Et  Folketog  is  the  one  of  the  three  books  in 
which  this  is  least  true.  It  is,  by  far,  the  most 
homogeneous,  and  constructed  with  the  surest 
touch,  even  though,  perhaps  in  depth,  it  must 
stand  below  both  the  others.  It  is  uniform  and 
single  in  its  plan,  and,  with  the  exception  of  the 
unhappy  ending,  the  author  has,  nowhere,  set 
himself  too  great  a  task  for  his  ability.  At  the 
heart  of  the  book  stands  Peter  Hegge,  and,  about 
him,  are  grouped  the  other  people,  so  to  speak, 
in  circles  which  become  less  individualized  and 
more  typical  the  nearer  they  reach  the  periphery, 
until  they  become  merely  part  of  the  back- 
ground, like  the  typical  poor  man  and  the  ab- 
stract fishing  group  already  mentioned.  In  fact, 
the  book's  chief  theme  is,  at  least,  nearly  as 
much  the  parish  as  it  is  Peter  Hegge.  It  is,  first 
and  foremost,  the  portrayal  of  a  milieu,  and  for 
this  purpose,  it  is  well  for  the  people  seldom  to 


86  JOHAN   BOJER 

be  presented  separately,  but  chiefly  when  en- 
gaged in  joint  work,  or  when  definite  occasions 
bring  them  together.  The  book,  certainly,  has 
a  purpose,  but  one  can  see,  at  the  same  time,  that 
the  author  has  an  evident  pleasure  in  the  picture 
for  its  own  sake,  and  this  pleasure  shows  itself, 
not  least  of  all,  in  the  pictures  of  the  typical 
events  and  scenes  that  take  up  the  greater  part 
of  the  book.  The  fishermen's  home-coming,  the 
cutting  of  the  hay,  going  to  church,  summer  fairs, 
Christmas  festivities,  and,  naturally,  the  polit- 
ical events,  electoral  meetings  and  voting  —  all 
these  are  painted  quietly  and  in  detail,  without 
great  gestures,  but  graphically  and  vividly,  so 
that  the  picture  of  the  parish  and  its  life  grows 
into  a  whole,  and  stand  forth  clearly  and  vividly. 
In  Den  Evige  Krig  the  descriptions  are  much 
less  equally  balanced.  The  number  of  people 
and  their  different  destinies  are  assuredly  and 
adroitly  knitted  together,  but  they  become  diver- 
gent to  a  great  degree.  The  inhabitants  of  Linde- 
gard  are,  nearly  all,  very  livingly  portrayed, 
and  that  part  of  the  book  which  is  concerned 
with  them,  is  a  realistic  romance,  written  in 
a  strongly  lyrical  spirit.     Editor  Kahrs  and  his 


POLITICS   AND   AN   AUTHOR      87 

circle  are,  however,  more  or  less  lifeless  personi- 
fications, and  the  parts  of  the  book  in  which  they 
dominate  are,  practically,  social-criticism  essays 
in  novel  form.  It  cannot  be  denied  that  these 
parts  are  written  with  great  power,  and  despite 
the  more  abstract  and  didactic  flavor,  are  read 
with  interest.  But  the  different  constituent 
parts  of  the  book  do  not  cohere,  so  that  the  work 
lacks  homogeneity.  In  still  greater  degree  is 
this  same  thing  true  of  Moder  Lea.  The  two 
contrasted  parts  are  here,  over  plainly,  unger- 
mane.  Lea  and  her  sons  are  portrayed  as  ideal 
figures,  with  great  lives  and  in  mighty  dimen- 
sions, but  their  opposite,  Hans  Lunde,  is  a  little 
common  man  who  is  painted  with  great  sedu- 
lousness  and  most  minute  psychological  analysis. 
That  such  different  sorts  of  beings  are  brought 
together  into  the  same  valley  and  united  by  the 
action  of  the  novel  is  disintegrating  in  its  effect 
on  the  book.  One  has  the  impulse  to  try  to  dis- 
entangle it  into  its  separate  strands,  and  this 
can  quite  easily  be  done.  There  would  then  be 
a  fantasy  or  myth,  or  whatever  one  really  wants 
to  call  it,  about  Lea  and  her  sons,  that  could 
be  read  with  profit  because  of  the  value  of  the 


88  JOHAN    BOJER 

idea  and  the  power  of  the  descriptions,  and  there 
would  be  a  psychological  novel  about  Hans 
Lunde  and  his  wife  that  would  take  its  place  as 
Bojer's  most  distinguished  work  before  Troens 
Magt  (The  Power  of  a  Lie). 


IV 

BOJER'S   CHARACTERS 

IT  THEN  an  author  wishes  to  portray  a  char- 
▼  ▼  acter,  he  must,  necessarily,  make  a 
distinction  between  the  essential  and  the  un- 
essential. He  cannot  follow  his  hero,  in  every 
movement,  day  by  day,  from  hour  to  hour,  and 
portray  every  least  thing.  He  has  to  fore- 
shorten. 

Such  a  foreshortening  can,  however,  be  ac- 
complished in  two  ways. 

It  can  be  brought  about  by  the  whole  pic- 
ture being,  so  to  speak,  attenuated,  all  details 
left  out,  only  the  big  headlines  left  —  a  narrative 
of  the  hero's  fate  in  a  few  strokes. 

But  it  can  be  brought  about  by  the  description 
being  concentrated  upon  the  prominent  and  char- 
acteristic episodes.  The  intervening  periods  are 
passed  over,  but  to  make  up  for  this,  the  im- 
portant situations  and  events  get  a  certain  full- 
ness of  treatment.    Instead  of  listening  to  a 

89 


9o  JOHAN   BOJER 

condensed  report,  we  get  an  opportunity  to  see 
and  hear  for  ourselves. 

In  every  modern  novel  both  sorts  of  fore- 
shortening are  employed,  as  the  author  usually 
describes  a  number  of  episodes,  and  reports  what 
happens  between  them.  But  the  episode  nearly 
always  stands  in  the  foreground  as  the  most  liv- 
ing and  moving  part  of  the  picture. 

Such  an  episode  can,  obviously,  have  its  chief 
interest  and  value  in  itself,  but  underneath,  have 
also  its  value  in  connection  with  the  whole ;  it  can 
push  the  action  a  step  forward ;  it  can  contribute 
to  the  portrayal  of  the  hero's  development,  or 
give  him  opportunity  to  show  a  new  side  of  his 
character.  But  the  episode  can  also  be  a  symbol, 
with  deeper  meaning  and  wider  perspective  than 
the  other,  containing  the  essence  of  a  whole  char- 
acter or  a  whole  development.  And  just  this 
use  of  such  symbolic  episodes  is  one  of  the  chief 
distinctions  of  Bojer's  style. 

We  saw  that  when  Bojer  wanted  to  paint  a 
poor  peasant  it  came  to  him  naturally  to  do  this 
by  the  method  of  uniting  a  number  of  portraits 
into  a  single  type,  and  when  he  wanted  to  treat 
the  newspaper  or  the  woman  question,  he  con- 


BOJER'S   CHARACTERS  91 

centrated,  in  a  similar  way,  ail  into  a  single  pic- 
ture, a  personification. 

He  does  not,  however,  stop  here,  but  carries 
the  concentration  farther,  as  he  seeks  to  bring 
out  the  character  description  in  markedly  plastic 
situations  with  symbolic  perspective.  As  the 
press  is  typified  in  Kahrs,  so  is  Kahrs  expressed 
in  the  scene  where  he  stands  at  the  secret  ballot, 
and  with  his  searching  glance,  forces  those  hesi- 
tating to  vote  as  he  wishes.  All  his  power  over 
the  town  is  summed  up  in  this  silent  picture. 
We  find  similar  instances  again  and  again:  most 
of  the  characters  are  shown  once,  or  more  than 
once,  in  a  situation  which  is,  as  it  were,  a  symbol 
of  their  inner  self  or  their  destiny,  where  we  hear 
their  ground  tones  ring  out  clear  and  full. 

When  Et  Folketog  ends  with  Peter  Hegge  and 
the  others,  while  they  are  singing  national  songs, 
blindly  driving  towards  the  rapids,  it  is  obviously 
something  more  than  an  adventitious  ending; 
it  is  an  attempt,  in  a  single  scene,  as  in  a  burning 
point,  to  gather  together  the  whole  meaning  of 
the  book.  But,  except  in  this  case,  it  is  espe- 
cially in  the  two  other  books  that  this  sort  of 
symbol  sets  its  mark  on  the  narrative. 


92  JOHAN   BOJER 

We  saw  that  Samuel  Brandt  began  as  a  sincere 
idealist,  but  his  independence  and  strength  of  will 
were  too  weak  to  protect  him  from  party  control; 
he  is  overpowered,  is  thrown  out  of  his  course, 
and  ends  by  deceiving  himself  and  others.  The 
crucial  scene,  symbolic  of  this  whole  develop- 
ment, is  his  first  public  appearance  as  speaker, 
where  he  begins  by  saying  what  he  has  at  heart, 
but,  literally,  is  carried  away  by  the  crowd  in 
front  of  him,  and  is  worked  up  into  saying  what 
they  desire  and  are  accustomed  to  hearing,  until, 
when  it  is  all  over,  he  is  seized  with  self  scorn 
and  despair.  "He  had  a  feeling  as  if  he  had 
lived  through  a  lifetime  up  there  in  the  speaker's 
chair."    And  he  had,  in  fact  —  through  his  own. 

For  Lea's  affairs  we  have  particularly  two  such 
scenes.  One  is  the  scene  where  she  is  at  the 
beginning  of  her  work,  and,  one  day,  goes  out 
to  look  at  the  new  fields,  her  energy  cleared. 
"Slowly,  and  as  if  praying,  she  walked;  it  was 
certainly  delightful;  a  new  joy  began  to  fill  her 
breast;  it  was  as  though  the  earth  communi- 
cated itself  to  her,  and  mounted  into  her  body 
with  a  marvellously  intoxicating  force.  What 
was  it  that  was  happening?     She  was  sowing  for 


BOJER'S   CHARACTERS  93 

her  own  future,  in  confidence  in  the  ground, 
sowing  the  seeds  of  destiny  for  herself  and  for 
her  children,  and  every  time  she  scattered  fresh 
handfuls  of  corn,  it  was  like  a  new  prayer  that 
happiness  might  come  of  the  act.  She  became, 
even  while  she  walked  there  sowing  her  seed, 
transported  by  a  stronger  and  stronger  rapture, 
and  like  a  madonna,  she  walked  back  and  forth 
now,  back  and  forth,  strewing  the  seed,  giving 
it  to  the  virgin  earth's  body,  which  for  the  first 
time  was  to  be  blessed  with  fruitfulness." 

When  she  finishes,  she  sits  down  on  a  stone, 
and  then  is  given  us  a  plastic  group  of  the  same 
sort  as  Zola,  particularly  in  his  later  books,  liked 
to  portray:  "As  if  feeling  the  need  to  be  very 
strong  she  gathered  her  children  around  her  like 
a  hen  with  her  chickens.  And  these  young  work- 
ers suddenly  broke  out  into  joyous  shouts  at  her 
caress,  clung  to  her  arm,  climbed  into  her  lap, 
leaned  on  her  breast,  clambered  on  her  back,  and 
hung  about  her  neck,  till  they  at  last  seemed 
one  in  body,  one  in  soul,  one  in  love,  breaking 
forth  in  joy  and  caresses  and  the  love  word  of 
all  words,  'mother!  mother! '  " 

The  other  scene  is  the  one,  where  Lea,  at  the 


94  JOHAN   BOJER 

end  of  her  life,  on  her  eightieth  birthday,  like 
the  diamond-wedding  pair  in  Zola's  Fertility 
sits  looking  out  over  her  flock  of  blooming  chil- 
dren and  grandchildren,  and  over  the  whole 
parish  whose  blessing  she  has  been,  and  from 
which  her  blessing  now  streams  out  farther  over 
the  earth. 

"Her  life  was  begun  like  a  kernel  of  grain, 
in  the  children  it  became  an  ear  —  from  which 
had  come  an  acre.    Was  she  not  immortal?" 

Between  these  scenes  —  one  might  almost  say 
tableaux  —  lies  Lea's  life,  but,  in  them,  is  con- 
tained her  destiny;  her  joyous  strength,  and  her 
work's  and  her  education's  fruitful  success. 
That  Bojer  himself  found  the  symbol,  in  the 
last  scene,  too  massive  is  seen  in  the  Swedish 
translation,  where  the  last  chapter,  with  the  de- 
scription of  the  birthday,  is  omitted. 

The  most  living  and  strongly  impressive  of 
all  these  situations  with  symbolic  meaning  is 
probably  old  Brandt's  death  in  Den  Evige  Krig 
(The  Eternal  Strife),  when  he  lay  dying,  and 
the  three  sons  sat  in  the  next  room  waiting. 
They  seem,  in  that  moment,  like  representatives 
for  each  of  the  powers  of  the  mind,  but  at  the 


BOJER'S   CHARACTERS  95 

same  time,  like  living  men,  torn  by  mutual  hos- 
tility and  harrowed  by  the  strain  because  they 
wait  for  the  arrangements  their  father  would 
make  at  his  death.  Then,  suddenly,  the  door 
of  the  sick  room  opened,  and  the  dying  father, 
who  for  a  year  and  a  day  had  not  been  able 
to  walk,  on  account  of  his  lameness,  stood  there 
in  his  white  night  robe.  The  three  brothers 
turned  ghastly  white  and  were  stricken  dumb, 
because  they  felt  that  he  came  like  a  judge  of 
their  eternal  strife.  But  the  father  walked  firm 
and  upright  across  the  floor,  wrote  his  name  on 
Carsten's  document,  and  held  it  out  to  him. 
He  had  given  his  life's  all,  his  blessing  to  prac- 
tical work,  and  at  the  same  time,  pronounced  sen- 
tence of  death  over  the  two  others.  Then 
his  strength  gave  out,  he  staggered,  and  Carsten, 
who  got  the  blessing,  carried  his  dead  father  in 
his  arms  into  the  bed. 

There  is  an  extraordinary  power  in  the  whole 
scene;  every  word,  every  gesture  works  in  close 
harmony.  More  strongly,  or  more  seizingly 
than  in  this  picture,  the  author  could  not  give  his 
book's  underlying  thought. 


CHAPTER   V 
THE   DEVELOPMENT   OF   OPTIMISM 

Vort  Rige  (Our  Kingdom)  is  called  in  the 
French  translation,  Sous  le  del  Vide  (Beneath 
the  Empty  Sky),  and  Bojer's  following  novel  is 
called  Liv  (Life).  In  the  contrast  evident  in 
these  two  titles  is  expressed  also  the  contrast 
between  the  mood  of  Bojer's  earlier  books  and 
those  which  from  now  on  became  the  rule.  With 
the  exception  of  Carsten  and  Bratt  in  Den  Evige 
*~  Krig,  Bojer's  brighter  characters  have,  up  to  this 
time,  only  been  found  in  the  myth  about  Lea 
and  her  gigantic  sons  and  in  the  fairy  tales  in 
Hvide  Fugle.  But,  in  Liv,  they  enter  into  the 
realistic  novel  as  modern,  living  men. 

There  are,  first  and  foremost,  the  painter 
Tangen  and  his  brother  the  architect.  Like 
Peer  Holm  in  Den  Store  Hunger  they  are  illegiti- 
mate children  brought  up  by  poor  foster  parents 
in  the  country,  and  it  is  by  their  own  efforts  that 
4,  they  have  made  a  success  of  themselves.  The 
painter  with  his  four  and  twenty  years  is  already 

96 


DEVELOPMENT    OF   OPTIMISM      97 

well  upon  the  road  to  world  fame,  but  his 
brother  is  still  too  young  to  have  been  able  yet  to 
work  out  his  mighty  ideas.  But  the  point  in 
common  between  them  is  the  overflowing  joy  in 
life,  which  bubbles  out  like  the  rush  of  sparkling 
water  about  them.  The  architect  is  only  slightly 
individualized,  he  is  merely  the  young,  richly 
talented  youth,  who  in  the  flush  of  first  love  and 
a  fixed  belief  in  his  own  abilities,  sees  life  as 
nothing  but  sunshine,  and  brushes  away  all  diffi- 
culties as  if  it  were  part  of  a  game.  But  the 
painter  is  made  very  living,  and  is  one  of  Bojer's 
finest  characters,  an  advance  sketch  for  Sigurd 
Braa.  His  life  hunger  is  insatiable,  yet  no  effect 
of  low  greed  is  given.  He  is  a  painter  and  sculp- 
tor, sportsman  and  social  lion,  naturalist  and 
lady's-man,  but  everything  that  he  does  and 
thinks  is  marked  by  the  same  unlimited  love  of 
life  and  ability  to  enjoy  it  to  the  full.  He  is 
reckless  and  extravagant.  Once,  when  he  had 
sold  a  picture  for  twenty  thousand  and  already 
used  a  good  deal  of  the  money,  the  purchaser 
died,  and  the  transaction  was  not  ratified.  But 
Tangen  managed  a  loan  and  gave  a  riotous  feast 
"to  his  ruined  dream."  "Because,  one  must  make 


98  JOHAN    BOJER 

fate  respect  him.  If  it  shows  signs  of  attacking, 
give  it  a  kick,  and  say, ' Three  blows  from  life,  mv 
friend.    Of  us  two,  I  intend  to  be  master! '  " 

And  when,  because  of  his  recklessness,  he  gets 
into  trouble  and  must  sell  his  beautiful  horn 
at  auction,  and  live  poorly  in  the  country,  he 
finds  an  advantage  in  this: 

"It  is  peerless  to  live  in  the  country,"  he  says. 
"One  gets  so  honorable.  No  flirtations.  No 
snobbishness.  Tobacco  in  pipe  and  herring  on 
the  table.  And  then,  besides,  this  period  of 
purgatory  will  have  its  effect  on  my  art.  I  was 
pretty  well  on  the  way  to  becoming  superficial 
and  false  in  my  work,  but  now  I  shall  go  and 
rub  the  sand  out  of  my  eyes  and  attempt  to  be 
original  again." 

"And  your  wife?"  asks  the  friend. 

"An  idyll,  my  friend.  Love  and  honeymoon 
business  between  us  from  morning  till  night." 

To  none  of  the  book's  characters  does  the  title 
more  fittingly  apply  than  to  the  painter.  He  has 
a  profound  union  with  life  which  never  is  dis- 
turbed or  destroyed,  because  his  joy  is  absolute, 
his  happiness  is  life  itself  and  is  independent  of 
what  his  fate  may  be. 


DEVELOPMENT   OF   OPTIMISM      99 

But  beside  him  and  his  brother  there  is  a  whole 
group  of  other  bright  characters  —  all  the  circle 
which  surrounds  him,  and  the  brilliantly  drawn 
old  General  Bang,  and  his  son  Reidar,  who  ran 
away  from  military  school  and  set  out  on  his  own 
hook  to  the  Klondike,  and  who  now  can  soar 
upon  skis  all  day  long,  dance  the  whole  evening 
and  then  at  night,  when  the  others  sleep,  go  to 
the  station  to  send  a  telegram,  taking  a  chance 
in  a  speculation  that  is  a  matter  of  hundreds  of 
thousands. 

There  is  an  unruly  gaiety  in  the  whole  circle. 
"Haven't  you  noticed  that  for  some  time  a  sort 
of  rejuvenation  is  bursting  forth  in  Norway?" 
says  the  painter.  "This  new  generation  is  not 
dulled  by  politics  or  literary  hospital  air  —  no. 
One  dresses  prettily,  is  athletic,  dances,  and 
takes  care  of  his  body.  Joy  in  living  makes 
things  happen.   Wait,  and  you'll  see." 

And  this  abundant  life  is  contagious.  Even 
Dr.  Holth,  through  love  of  Astrid,  acquires  a  new 
youth  and  new  love  of  life,  though  he  already 
was  well  on  the  way  to  be  dried  up  by  burdens 
and  worry  over  household  cares.  His  dingy  sur- 
roundings are  freshened  up  and  the  whole  home 


ioo  JOHAN    BOJER 

acquires  the  new  imprint,  and  when  it  is  over, 
he  has  a  desire  for  tenderness  and  peace  which 
brings  him  closer  to  his  wife  than  he  has  been 
for  years.  Besides  this,  he  has,  like  the  five  old 
monks  in  Paa  Minderness  O,  "a  wonderful  mem- 
ory in  his  heart,  that  can  never  die." 

Brightness  and  joy  in  living  are,  however,  not 
in  absolute  control  in  Liv.  The  contrast  to  Gen- 
eral Bang's  brilliant  circle  is  Captain  Riis,  who 
sits  in  his  poverty,  wrapped  in  nothing  but  bitter- 
ness and  desire  for  revenge.  His  life  has  been 
nothing  but  a  series  of  disappointments;  his 
career  was  ruined,  his  wife  played  him  false,  and 
now  that  he  is  old,  his  life  is  merely  a  great  envy 
and  enmity  towards  his  happy  rival  in  life,  Gen- 
eral Bang. 

He  represents  the  dark  side  —  all  that  we 
recognize  from  Bojer's  earlier  books.  Since  he 
himself  is  bitter  and  lets  suffering  master  him, 
the  suffering  spreads  about  him,  and  the  one  on 
whose  head  it  is  wreaked  is  his  pretty,  life- 
hungry,  young  daughter,  Astrid. 

She  has  come  to  be  friends  with  the  daughter 
of  General  Bang  and  goes  to  his  home  without 
daring  to  tell  her  father  that  she  does  so,  and 


DEVELOPMENT   OF   OPTIMISM     101 

even  gets  eventually  to  love  the  son,  Reidar. 
But  she  dares  not  give  herself  up  fully  to  the 
joyousness  of  the  Bang's  circle;  she  feels  always 
like  a  traitor  to  her  father.  He  is  fretful  and 
bitter,  and  very  demanding,  but  this  is,  of  course, 
only  because  life  has  been  very  evil  to  him,  and 
each  time  she  braces  herself  to  open  revolt  in 
order  to  get  a  chance  to  be  young  and  live  her 
own  life,  she  draws  back  from  the  opportunity 
and  fears  to  deliver  the  death  blow  to  so  hard 
pressed  a  man. 

So  the  young  Astrid  lives  a  divided  and  dis- 
tressed life.  The  small  joys  she  manages  to 
get  she  must  steal  and  pay  dearly  for  in  her 
conscience  because  they  necessitate  lying  to  her 
father,  so,  finally,  the  catastrophe  happens.  She 
dares  not  yield  to  her  feeling  for  Reidar  Bang, 
but  her  passion  is  awakened,  and  when  Dr.  Holth 
pays  earnest  court  to  her,  she  lets  herself  be 
carried  away,  puts  him  in  Reidar's  place  in  her 
thoughts,  and  so  dreaming  that  he  is  her  real 
lover  she  gives  herself  one  beautiful  summer 
night  on  the  fjord  to  the  doctor.  What  use  is  it 
that  she  wakes  to  reality  dismayed,  what  use  is 
it  that  she  breaks  with  her  father  at  last  and  is 


102  JOHAN   BOJER 

married  to  Reidar.  It  is  too  late;  the  yielding 
to  Dr.  Holth  has  had  consequences,  and  shortly 
after  her  wedding,  she  sails  out  on  the  fjord  one 
stormy  day  and  does  not  return. 

That  a  fresh  young  girl  should  give  herself  to 
a  man  whom  she  does  not  really  love  but  whom 
she  pretends  is  another  is  certainly,  to  say  the 
least,  improbable.  To  be  sure  the  power  of 
imagination  is  great,  and  in  the  case  of  Knut 
Norby,  Bojer  succeeded  in  giving  the  delusion 
credibility,  but  here  he  does  not  carry  the  reader 
with  him. 

One  wonders,  perhaps,  also,  what  purpose  this 
improbability  serves,  for  it  is  not  simply  treated 
as  an  interesting  psychological  case,  yet  it  cer- 
tainly was  not  introduced  purely  for  its  own  sake. 
But,  in  the  plan  of  the  novel,  it  serves  as  an  accu- 
sation against  Captain  Riis.  To  be  sure,  he  has 
had  a  sad  life,  and  the  author  has  put  so  much 
effort  into  motivating  his  bitterness,  that  one 
can  almost  feel  it  justified.  But  one  isn't  justi- 
fied in  bitterness  for  anything  in  the  world. 
When  Captain  Riis  permits  his  hate  and  his 
animosity  to  limit  Astrid's  lot,  and  demands  that 
she  shall  sacrifice  her  youth  and  her  right  to 


DEVELOPMENT   OF   OPTIMISM     103 

happiness,  then  he  is  a  typical  "dark  character" 
of  Bojer's,  and  here,  as  in  the  other  books,  un- 
happiness  must  result.  Bojer's  optimism  is  not 
absolute.  In  Liv  we  see  the  power  of  joy  in 
living  to  make  life  happy,  but  evil  constantly 
breeds  evil,  and  the  book  is  constructed  to  show 
just  this  contrast.  And  Astrid's  use  in  the  plan 
of  the  book  is  just  to  show  that  joy  in  life  is  not 
absolute  in  its  power;  her  lot  is  to  be  sacrificed 
and  thus  to  illustrate  what  fateful  consequences 
Captain  RuV  hate  and  enmities  have,  so  that  he 
is  shown  in  frightful  contrast  to  the  bright  char- 
acters in  the  Bang  circle. 

Now  one  can  well  imagine  that  the  same  thing 
could  have  been  accomplished  if  Astrid  only  had 
been  of  the  sort  to  break  with  her  father,  when 
he,  in  that  way,  persisted  in  standing  between  her 
happiness  and  Reidar's.  But  really  it  could  not. 
For  such  as  Reidar  is  painted,  he  is  not  the  man 
who  would  let  himself  be  prevented  for  any 
length  of  time  from  conquering  his  loved  one.  If 
she  did  not  have  the  courage  to  break  with  her 
father,  he  would  manage  somehow  so  that  at  last 
it  really  should  happen  anyway.  If  the  results 
of  the  "powers  of  darkness"  in  Captain  Riis  show 


io4  JOHAN   BOJER 

themselves  in  Astrid's  being  precipitated  into 
misfortune,  then  it  must  specially  be  arranged 
that  Reidar  has  time  to  interfere.  This  is  doubt- 
less the  explanation  of  her  so  improbable  affair 
with  Dr.  Holth. 

The  strife  between  the  powers  of  light  and 
darkness  in  Liv  is  not  simply  that  of  being  oppo- 
sites.  It  is  more  complicated  and  more  tragic. 
Captain  Riis'  bitterness  is  considerably  to  blame 
in  Astrid's  unhappy  fate.  But  why  did  Captain 
Riis  become  bitter?  "Happiness  has  its  shadow," 
is  said  somewhere  in  the  book,  and  this  is  so.  All 
the  impulsive  careless  joy  of  living  in  the  Bang's 
circle  has  its  dark  side.  There  was,  to  begin 
with,  General  Bang,  who  was  the  guilty  cause  of 
Captain  Riis'  unhappiness  —  it  was  he  that  was 
put  over  him,  and  he  that  betrayed  the  Captain's 
wife  and  spoiled  his  life,  not  from  evilness,  oh, 
no,  only  in  the  overflowing  ardor  of  his  vitality, 
which  is  his  strength. 

And,  in  the  same  way,  when  Dr.  Holth  renews 

the  youth  of  his  spirit  in  his  love  affair  —  that 

also  has  its  tragic  consequences:  his  happiness  is 

Astrid's  undoing. 

-~  No,  optimism  is  not  absolute.    The  joyous  un- 


DEVELOPMENT   OF   OPTIMISM     105 

folding  of  life  is  beautiful  for  the  one  who  blos- 
soms out  but  not  for  the  others. 

Liv  has  an  unusual  number  of  pretty  descrip- 
tions, both  of  nature  and  of  the  exhilaration  from 
sports,  from  the  early  part  of  the  book  to  Astrid's 
still  gliding  out  into  death  at  the  end.  But  it 
does  not,  as  a  whole,  reach  the  artistic  level  with 
the  just  previously  written  novels.  This  is  not 
merely  because  of  the  artificialty  and  improba- 
bility in  Astrid's  fate,  but,  to  a  much  greater  de- 
gree, depends  on  the  dissimilarity  between  theme 
and  mood.  As  the  novel  is  constructed,  Astrid 
Riis  is  undoubtedly  the  heroine,  and  her  unhap- 
piness  and  tragic  death  are,  strictly  speaking,  its 
theme.  But  the  book's  tone  and  mood  are  alto- 
gether other  than  tragic.  Liv  was  written  when 
Bojer,  after  many  years  of  residence  abroad, 
came  home  to  Norway  again,  and  it  is  first  and 
foremost  an  interest  in  Norwegian  nature  and 
youthful  joy  in  life  that  stamps  it.  Skiing  and 
dancing,  tennis,  the  bright  nights,  St.  Hansfest, 
hunting  and  the  many  other  varied  joys  of  living 
are  described  with  such  a  glamor  that  one 
takes  the  tragic  ending  quite  good-humoredly 
after  all. 


106  JOHAN   BOJER 

Bojer's  next  three  works,  the  allegory  Fangen 
Som  Sang  (The  Prisoner  Who  Sang),  (1913), 
the  Sigurd  Braa  (19 16)  and  the  novel  Den  Store 
Hunger  (19 16)  have  all  a  hero  who,  like  the 
painter  Tangen  in  Liv,  has  come  of  poor  begin- 
nings, but,  driven  by  their  "hunger  for  life"  get 
to  the  point  where  they  can  only  satisfy  it  by 
ever  greater  methods. 

When  Sigurd  Braa,  in  the  first  act,  comes  home 
from  a  ride,  he  tells  about  all  the  things  he  has 
imagined  while  he  was  out.  The  best  thing  is 
how  many  different  people  one  is,  he  thinks.  "If 
you  see  a  mound,  you  say  to  yourself:  'I  am 
Napoleon,  and  that  is  Austerlitz.  Go  free.' 
And  if  you  pass  a  church,  you  rise  in  your 
stirrups  and  say:  'I  am  Knight  Roland  and  must 
away  to  slay  the  heathen  at  Roncevaux.'  And 
finally,  you  meet,  of  course,  a  pretty  girl,  and 
then  .  .  .  then,  you  are  a  troubadour  who  must 
away  and  carry  off  the  princess  from  a  tower. 
When  you  get  home  you  have  lived  the  life  of 
every  sort  of  man  and  mixed  with  half  of  the 


universe." 


On  this  theme  Fangen  Som  Sang  is  written. 
Andreas  Berget  grows  up  with  an  insatiable 


DEVELOPMENT   OF   OPTIMISM     107 

thirst  for  life,  for  experiences  —  which  he 
steadily  slakes  recklessly.  He  flings  a  window 
down  from  a  loft  to  see  the  terror  it  will  cause, 
he  shrieks  out  "Devil  fly  away  with  me"  in  the 
middle  of  a  funeral  in  order  to  enjoy  the  result. 
He  brings  life  into  the  whole  country-side  through 
summoning  the  whole  world  to -a  conciliation 
commission  for  the  most  amazing  things.  But 
his  longing  for  experience  takes  another  turn 
also.  He  puts  himself  into  other  people's  per- 
sonalities as  he  reads,  and  lives  their  lives  in 
fancy,  yes,  soon  begins  to  create  for  himself 
various  roles:  he  pretends  to  be  a  beggar  and 
fools  the  priest;  he  appears  as  a  rich  land  owner 
and  he  fools  even  the  old,  crafty  merchant  in  the 
town.  One  time  he  was  an  actor  but  he  didn't 
care  for  this  role  because  both  he  and  others 
knew  it  was  pretense.  Then  he  began  to  act  his 
roles  in  earnest  in  his  own  life.  He  couldn't 
see  how  people  could  be  contented  to  be  the  same 
person  year  in  and  year  out.  Fancy,  during  a 
whole  year,  only  living  one  person's  experience! 
No  —  his  life  should  be  other  than  this.  Each 
time  he  met  a  man  that  interested  him,  he  would 
ask  himself:  could  you  act  his  part?     Could 


108  JOHAN    BOJER 

you  live  his  life?  Could  you  share  in  his  ex- 
periences? 

Thus  he  leads  a  roving  existence  being  con- 
stantly a  new  person.  Now  he  is  a  Methodist 
preacher  and  holds  a  revival,  now  he  is  a  Ger- 
man gynecologist  who  makes  a  sensation 
at  a  Cure.  And  he  isn't  contented  merely  to 
change  externals ;  he  lived  himself  into  the  char- 
acter —  he  "played"  it.  When  he  has  to  be  a 
Norwegian-born  engineer  from  Alaska,  then  he 
studies  the  part,  thinks  over  everything  that 
could  happen  to  him,  and  his  reading  and  think- 
ing come  to  seem  like  recollections,  until  he 
finally  feels  that  he  is  the  person  he  is  enacting. 
"I  don't  content  myself  with  being  shut  up  in  a 
single  life  experience,"  he  says,  "I  hunger  for 
new,  always  and  ever  new  ones.  I  had  a  voice 
in  me  which  cried  out  for  new  and  ever  new 
human  forms;  this  was  to  me  study,  develop- 
ment, the  impulse  of  eternity  —  life."  He  creates 
personalities  like  a  playwright,  or  a  poet,  but  in- 
stead of  shutting  them  up  in  a  book,  or  a  scene, 
he  gives  them  life,  and  lets  them  take  the  air 
among  men. 

But,  finally,  he  meets  his  fate;  he  comes  to 


DEVELOPMENT    OF    OPTIMISM     109 

love  a  woman,  and  she  loves  him.  But  who  is  it 
she  loves?  Who  is  he?  At  the  moment  a  farmer 
from  Brazil,  but  heretofore?  —  and  next  year? 
His  actual  personality  has  been  destroyed  mean- 
time; he  has  divided  himself  up  among  a  group 
of  characters  who  each  get  believed  in  but  who 
are  all  imposters.  Can  he  tie  a  woman  to  this 
sort  of  a  man? 

So  the  farmer  is  drowned  a  week  before  the 
wedding  and  Andreas  pops  up  in  a  new  char- 
acter. But  now  it  comes  to  pass  that  his  ability 
grows  less;  he  makes  mistakes,  and  the  police, 
who  have  a  long  reckoning  against  him  for 
many  goings  on,  get  hold  of  him. 

But,  in  prison,  his  imagination  goes  yet  further 
—  entirely  beyond  bounds.  In  ten  thousand 
years  there  will  come  a  ruler  over  the  whole  of 
our  planet.  Can  you  take  on  his  character?  In  a 
hundred  thousand  years  there  will  come  one  who 
shall  reign  over  the  whole  universe.  What  will 
he  be  like?  In  the  neighboring  cells  they  heard 
a  happy  prisoner  walking  up  and  down  the  floor 
of  his  cell,  singing. 

The  Prisoner  who  Sang  is  half  a  story,  half  a 
fairy  tale.  A  great  mass  of  details  are  living  and 


no  JOHAN    BOJER 

realistic,  but  all  proportions  are  magnified,  with  a 
regal  disregard  for  probability.  Most  men  know 
certainly  both  the  impulse  to  say  "Devil  fly  away 
with  me"  in  the  midst  of  some  ceremonial  and  to 
live  themselves  into  other  characters  and  fates 
than  their  own.  But  one  keeps  decently  still, 
nevertheless,  and  the  experiences  occur  only  in 
imagination.  But  Andreas  actually  lived  the 
parts.  He  had  both  the  unscrupulousness  and 
the  ability  to  transform  himself  to  an  absolute 
degree.  The  whole  description  is  to  be  inter- 
preted as  an  experiment.  The  premises  are  the 
impulse  for  constantly  changing  experiences,  the 
problem  to  point  the  satisfaction  of  this  long- 
ing —  without  limit  —  and  the  result  is  the  com- 
plete annihilation  of  personality.  The  influence 
of  the  will  and  of  the  desire  on  the  actions  has, 
to  be  sure,  already  been  treated  of  in  the  earlier 
books  —  here  it  is  the  same  influnce  only  now  be- 
come absolute.  What  Andreas  wishes,  he  gets; 
what  he  wants  to  be,  he  becomes.  The  oppor- 
tunity for  this  possibility  does  not  belong  to 
reality  but  to  the  land  of  fairy. 

Fangen  Som  Sang  is  as  an  experiment  very 
interesting;  the  beginning  is  fresh  and  amusing, 


DEVELOPMENT   OF   OPTIMISM     in 

but,  later,  the  details  do  not  have  sufficient  value 
to  compensate  for  the  fact  that  one  has,  long  be- 
fore, grown  clear  as  to  the  meaning,  and  could 
practically  complete  it  just  as  well  himself. 

In  Sigurd  Braa's  character  we  meet  the  same 
appetite  for  life  and  what  it  has  to  offer.  But 
while  Fangen  Som  Sang  was  a  fairy  tale  nd  a 
study  of  a  pathological  case,  Sigurd  Braa  is  a 
strongly  personified  expression  of  a  glorification 
of  the  modern  renaissance  character. 

In  the  two  first  acts  he  is  painted  as  the  ideal 
superman  who  enjoys  life  as  if  he  were  ten  men 
and  works  like  twenty,  and  for  whom  everything 
that  he  is  connected  with  goes  gloriously.  He 
loves  pomp  and  magnificence,  riding  and  outdoor 
sports,  dancing  and  champagne,  and  feasting  in 
the  long,  bright  nights.  He  must  have  a  part  in 
everything,  enjoys  everything  boisterously  yet 
intensely,  and  cannot  be  satisfied.  He  loves  his 
wife  deeply  and  honorably,  but  love  gives  him 
"the  taste  for  more"  and  he  enjoys  to  the  full  the 
pleasure  which  other  women  can  provide  him 
with. 

At  the  same  time  he  is  the  genial  worker,  in- 


ii2  JOHAN   BOJER 

ventor,  and  director  to  the  full,  but  the  aim  of 
all  this  work  is  neither  money  nor  renown;  he 
dreams  of  what  he,  rather  philosophically,  calls 
"a  relation  between  the  degree  to  which  one 
creates  and  the  gaiety  of  one's  thoughts,  the 
pride  in  one's  own  character."  He  wants  to  have 
"more  power  over  his  abilities,  more  bright- 
arched  heaven  above  him,"  and,  at  the  same  time 
he  wants  others  to  share  with  him  the  same  aims, 
to  be  "priests  of  freedom  to  men's  thoughts,  to 
create  happiness  and  growth  and  joy  in  life  for 
the  thousands." 

Such  is  Sigurd  Braa,  "King  Braa"  as  people 
call  him.  But  things  go  with  him  as  with  the 
Knight  in  the  poem,  who  rode  over  the  country  in 
a  splendid  purple  cap  —  and  made  all  the  dogs 
howl.  King  Braa  had  many  enemies,  and  when 
the  time  was  ripe,  they  hurled  themselves  upon 
him,  led  by  his  arch  enemy,  Roll.  He  is  re- 
moved from  his  position,  his  friends  let  them- 
selves be  bought  or  are  frightened,  the  press  be- 
smirches him,  and  he  is  even  accused  of  embez- 
zling. This  is  the  test  of  his  character,  —  now  he 
must  show  his  value  as  a  man,  show  whether  he 
can  face  suffering  as  well  as  good  days. 


DEVELOPMENT   OF   OPTIMISM     113 

The  conflict  reaches  a  climax  —  rather  well 
planned  —  in  the  matter  of  the  forgery.  Sigurd 
Braa  has  actually  taken  100,000  kronen  from 
the  company's  money  —  but  he  has  used  them  as 
a  fund  for  the  workers.  If  he  explains  the  whole 
matter  he  will  undoubtedly  be  freed  by  the  jury, 
but  the  workers  must  be  without  their  fund 
again.  If  he  keeps  still,  he  must  go  to  prison, 
but  the  fund  will  be  saved.  The  fund  has  be- 
come the  symbol  of  all  in  his  efforts  that  has 
ideal  value.  Is  he  man  enough  to  sacrifice  him- 
self in  order  to  save  the  cause? 

Sigurd  Braa  wavers.  Shall  Roll  also  have  the 
triumph  of  seeing  him  sentenced  as  a  criminal? 
But  then  Eli,  his  wife,  comes  to  his  help. 

"Those  who  have  a  religion,"  says  she,  "they 
are  able  to  stand  up  under  even  greater  ad- 
versity. But  we  who  do  not  believe  in  a  faraway 
God  in  the  clouds,  we  must  try  to  do  for  our- 
selves that  which  the  others  look  for  from  him." 
And  she  begins  to  recall  all  the  beautiful  ex- 
periences life  has  brought  them.  "If  these  things 
cannot  give  us  some  small  support  in  evil  days, 
then  there  is  no  great  use  in  all  of  that. 

"As  for  me,  Sigurd,  the  wonderful  moments  we 


ii4  JOHAN   BOJER 

have  lived  through  are  like  a  sort  of  sacred 
revelation.  And  here  we  sit,  as  rich  as  this,  you 
and  I,  and  yet  you  call  us  poor.  Yet  you  will 
let  the  world  bring  us  low!  Eh?  Suppose  we 
fill  our  hearts  full  of  our  most  beautiful 
memories,  you  and  I,  and  show  ourselves  richer 
than  anyone,  just  when  the  world  believes  we 
are  beaten.  If  we  fling  a  really  valuable  gift  to 
the  mob,  not  for  mankind's  sake,  but  as  a  little 
monument  to  our  happiness,  you  and  I  —  just 
so  that  our  youth  will  not  die,  our  love  shall  not 
die,  just  so  that  beauty  shall  not  perish  in  this 
earth,  eh?  Thus  we  shall  have  a  little  some- 
thing to  warm  ourselves  by  when  we  are  far  apart 
sometime." 

"I  understand,"  says  Braa.  "You  —  you  want 
me  —  to  —  to  go  to  prison! " 

And  Eli  smiled.  "If  you  have  courage 
enough  for  that  now,  when  the  world  believes 
you  are  broken,  then  it  seems  to  me  it  will  be  the 
finest  thing  you  could  do,  Sigurd,  with  your 
insatiable  hunger,  your  love  of  life,  your  genius. 
Thus  high  have  your  abilities  led  you.  .  .  ." 

And  Sigurd  Braa  goes  to  prison.  And  when 
he  comes  out  he  feels  so  fine  because  of  his 


DEVELOPMENT   OF   OPTIMISM     115 

"saved-up  summer  feeling"  that  he  has  courage 
to  go  to  Roll  and  not  only  forgive  him  but  help 
him  out  of  a  desperate  situation.  It  is  very 
impressive  in  the  last  act,  these  two  set  face  to 
face.  Roll,  who  has  amassed  wealth  and  in- 
fluence, who  forced  Braa  from  his  position  in 
order  to  seize  it  for  himself,  but  who  has  been 
pining  with  horror  and  self-scorn  and  has  lost 
all  ability  to  be  glad  of  what  he  has  accom- 
plished, and  Braa,  who  has  nothing  but  his  in- 
ward wealth,  rejoicing  in  his  memories  and  be- 
lieving in  his  own  character.  They  are  both 
aware  that  it  is  Braa  who  is  the  richer  of  the 
two,  —  yes,  so  rich,  that  he  has  courage  to  divide 
his  surplus  vitality  with  the  other  and  try  "to 
make  a  great  man  out  of  him." 

But  that  Sigurd  Braa  is  capable  of  such 
lengths  is  due  to  Eli. 

Eli  is  the  opposite  of  Theodora  in  the  play 
of  1902.  The  latter  was  willing  to  sacrifice  her 
emotional  life  so  as  not  to  be  bound  by  anything 
or  dependent  in  any  way.  But  Eli  —  who 
might  have  become  an  artist  —  felt  that  it  was 
"more  worth  while  to  throw  one's  self,  and  one's 
talents,  the  whole  world  to  the  wind  for  one's 


n6  JOHAN   BOJER 

husband."  And  in  her  love  for  him,  she  found 
the  happiness  that  cast  its  halo  over  her 
character. 

The  play  begins  with  her  finding  out  that  she 
has  only  half  a  year  to  live.  But  this  does  not 
crush  her.  On  the  contrary.  She  compares  her- 
self to  a  sick  crane  she  had  seen,  decked  with  a 
plume  of  blood-red  and  violet  feathers.  As  sick- 
ness made  it  "break  out  into  a  mighty  flame  of 
life,"  so  she  also  will  bloom  till  the  end. 

Each  beauty  she  chanced  on,  every  happiness 
that  came  to  her,  filled  her  with  an  almost  un- 
earthly joy  —  "fancy  my  having  the  chance  to 
enjoy  this,  too!"  is  her  constant  refrain.  But 
she  does  not  merely  enjoy  herself;  she  tries  in 
these  last  days  also  with  redoubled  effort  to 
create  happiness,  she  occupies  herself  with  the 
poor,  she  drills  the  workingmen's  chorus  in  "the 
hymn  to  life,"  and,  first  and  foremost,  she  helps 
Sigurd  Braa  —  who  must  know  nothing  of  her 
sickness  —  to  bear  the  ill-fortune  which  comes 
upon  him. 

"Where  do  you  get  your  supernatural  courage 
from?"  asked  the  doctor  of  her.  "Why,  you  see," 
she  answers,  "I  have  had  such  a  wonderfully 


DEVELOPMENT   OF   OPTIMISM     117 

fine  time  in  my  life,  and  I've  seen  and  ex- 
perienced so  much  beauty.  And  so  I  must  at 
least  try  to  pay  it  back  somehow." 

And  this  very  idea  she  inculcates  in  Sigurd 
Braa,  so  that  he  in  the  consciousness  of  his  rich 
experience,  feels  himself  equal  to  the  greatest 
sacrifice.  There  is  a  sublime  beauty  over  the 
scene  where  Eli  and  Sigurd  Braa  talk  of  their 
happiness,  and  where  he  decides  to  go  to  prison, 
and  she  —  knowing  she  will  never  see  him  again 
—  still  is  able  to  rejoice  fully  at  "sending  him 
away  to  a  glorious  deed." 

And,  even  when  Eli  dies  while  Sigurd  Braa  is 
in  prison,  she  still  lives  in  his  soul.  "Do  you 
believe  that  the  woman  whom  a  man  loves  in 
any  real  way  can  ever  die?"  he  asks.  And  it  is 
the  memory  of  her  that  fills  him  constantly 
with  joy  and  strength.  Listen  to  what  he  says, 
himself: 

"I  could  howl  and  wail  with  sorrow  now. 
But  her  memory  belongs  where  people  smile.  I 
could  give  up  and  be  done  with  it  all.  But  she  — 
she  wants  to  live.  And  it  seems  to  me  that  every  ' 
act  that  changes  some  ugly  thing  to  beauty,  is  a 
sort  of  present  of  life  to  her.    That  brings  her 


xi8  JOHAN   BOJER 

back  among  us.  .  .  .  You  see  me  smiling  .  .  . 
that  is  because  I  feel  she  would  have  it  so.  Per- 
haps I  can  implant  her  ideas  also  in  other  men. 
Or  in  inventions  which  lead  men's  spirits  to  more 
brightness.  We  can,  in  many  ways,  make  those 
we  love  immortal." 

Bojer's  earlier  productions  contain  certainly 
many  attractive  and  fine  women  characters. 
Often  it  is  they  who,  innocent  and  yet  uncom- 
plaining, bear  the  consequences  of  men's  fights 
and  men's  hardness.  Kristine  Hegge  in  Et 
Folketog,  who  is  sacrificed  by  her  father;  Sara 
Brandt  in  Den  Evige  Krig,  who  sacrifices  herself 
for  her  brother;  Astrid  Riis  in  Liv,  who  is  driven 
to  her  unhappy  end  because  of  her  father's  bitter 
spirit  of  hate.  Often  it  is  they  who  stand  up 
beside  their  men  and  give  them  belief  and  joy 
in  their  work,  and  create  beauty  in  their  soul. 
Always  they  are  drawn  with  gentle  soft  touches, 
often  affectionately,  with  an  appreciation  and 
admiration  that  are  rare  in  modern  literature. 
Kjaerlighetens  Oine  and  Hvide  Fugle  are  even 
like  a  rapturous  hymn  to  the  praise  of  young 
girls. 

But  none  of  Bojer's  other  characters  reach  up 


DEVELOPMENT   OF   OPTIMISM     119 

to  the  level  of  Eli  Braa,  that  ideal  wife,  whose 
spirit  is  so  rich  in  happiness  that  she  can  smile 
at  fate  and  bear  all  burdens  gaily  for  her  hus- 
band's sake,  and  whoever  has  been  in  Bojer's/ 
home  can  readily  understand  that  he  has  not 
drawn  this  character  entirely  from  imagination. 

Norwegian  literature  has  few  pictures  of 
married  life  which,  in  beauty,  can  measure  up  to  ' 
this.  The  sympathetic  understanding  between 
man  and  wife,  the  mutual  joy  and  the  mutual 
help  approach  absolute  harmony  and  consum- 
mate richness. 

Sigurd  Braa's  character  is  considerably  less 
admirable  than  Eli's.  This  is  clear  particularly 
in  the  matter  of  his  hunger  for  life,  as  this  is 
portrayed  in  the  first  two  acts.  They  are  both 
too  ponderous  and  too  philosophic,  by  the  way, 
and  he  talks  too  much  in  them.  It  is  probably  the 
dramatic  form  that  here  impedes  Bojer.  One 
sees  this,  for  example,  in  comparing  Braa  with 
Tangen  in  Liv.  Tangen  also  loves  his  wife  and 
yet  he  is  attracted  and  infatuated  every  time 
he  comes  across  a  young  and  pretty  woman.  But 
the  novel  form,  where  all  the  reasons  for  moods 
can  be  brought  out,  and  where  the  author,  by  the 


120  JOHAN    BOJER 

tone  of  his  style  itself,  can  spread  a  charm  over 
that  which  he  is  describing  manages  to  give  the 
whole  the  effect  of  lightness  and  "innocence" 
which  he  intends.  But,  in  the  play,  there  is  some- 
thing less  airy,  and  it  doesn't  manage  to  give  the 
effect  of  mere  trifling. 

Sigurd  Braa  is  much  better  in  the  third  act 
in  the  scene  with  Eli;  and  in  the  last  act,  where 
he  comes  face  to  face  with  Roll,  his  replies  have 
a  quietness  and  an  inward  strength  which  give 
them  a  highly  subjective  flavor;  one  feels  to  how 
great  a  degree  the  author  himself  stands  behind 
and  within  what  he  says.  Fangen  Som  Sang  was, 
as  were  many  of  Bojer's  works,  received  with 
very  ungracious  antagonism  by  the  leading  Nor- 
wegian critics  (The  same  is  true  of  Sigurd  Braa, 
also.  One  reviewer  wrote,  for  example,  that  it 
couldn't  be  worse,  as  it  set  a  premium  on  affecta- 
tion), and  one  can  hardly  make  a  mistake  if  one 
in  Sigurd  Braa's  attitude  towards  his  enemies 
sees  a  manifestation  of  the  author's  triumph  over 
&  not  unnatural  bitterness. 

Technically  speaking  Sigurd  Braa  is  not  a  very 
distinguished  piece  of  work.  Bojer's  forte  is 
conclusively  the  novel  rather  than  the  drama, 


DEVELOPMENT   OF   OPTIMISM     121 

and  in  a  high  degree.  But,  even  among  his  plays, 
Sigurd  Braa  must  be  ranked  below  Brutus  for 
plastic  ability  in  situations  and  brilliant  psychol- 
ogy, and  below  Kjaerlighetens  Oine,  with  its 
fairy  tale  tone  and  its  clear  though  rather 
markedly  apparent  structure.  In  the  first  two 
acts  of  Sigurd  Braa  there  is  no  real  dramatic 
development,  and,  particularly,  the  second  act  is 
diffuse  and  static.  The  third  act,  on  the 
contrary,  (the  great  scene  between  Eli  and 
Braa)  is  remarkable,  and  the  meeting  between 
Braa  and  Roll  in  the  last  act  is  excellent,  but  the 
final  tableau  where  the  workmen,  at  Sigurd 
Braa's  instigation,  tender  Roll  an  ovation  and 
where  Braa's  little  daughter  brings  him  flowers 
will  hardly  bear  daylight.  One  of  the  minor 
characters,  the  wild  man  of  the  forest,  who, 
unfortunately,  has  a  considerable  part  through- 
out the  play,  is  exceedingly  unsuccessful  and  has 
a  most  irritating  effect. 

The  chief  distinction  of  Sigurd  Braa  is  the 
beauty  of  the  ideas  and  the  lyrical  power  with 
which  they  are  expressed,  particularly  in  Eli's 
speeches.  The  pursuit  of  joy  and  trust  in  the 
power  of  happy  memories  to  create  a  dwelling 


i2a  JOHAN   BOJER 

place  for  the  spirit,  which  no  suffering  can  tear 
one  from,  appeared  previously  in  Hvide  Fugle. 
But  here  it  is  removed  from  fairyland  and  intro- 
duced into  real  modern  life  without  destroying 
anything  of  its  glamor.  And  more  stress  is  laid 
upon  the  strength  which  streams  forth  from  an 
inner  joy.  "If  one  has  breathed  more  fragrance 
and  light  than  most  people,  then  one  is  in  duty 
bound  also  to  do  a  little  better  than  they,"  says 
Sigurd  Braa.  And  indeed  one  has  the  strength  to. 
So  one  can  outwit  fate  by  smiling,  when  one 
would  otherwise  be  utterly  crushed.  So  one  can 
\  triumph  over  his  enemies,  not  by  obstinately 
fighting  for  one's  rights,  but  by  lavishly  giving 
them  of  one's  soul's  wealth. 

The  religious  tone  that  is  so  apparent  in  Sigurd 
Braa  is  more  rather  than  less  distincf  in  the 
following  works  of  Bojer.  But  Erik  Evje  in  Vort 
Rige  and  Reidar  Bang  in  Liv  talk  of  the  religious 
poverty  of  the  day,  and  nearly  all  those  of  his 
characters  who  have  any  of  the  light  of  idealism 
upon  them  are  marked  by  the  desire  to  get 
religious  perspective  for  their  life.  Cars  ten 
Brandt  in  Den  Evige  Krig  was  not  merely  ab- 


DEVELOPMENT   OF   OPTIMISM     123 

sorbed  in  his  work,  but  it  was  to  him  a  religion. 
It  was  this  same  attitude  that  Bratt  took  towards 
his  art,  and  Samuel  Brandt  towards  democracy. 
And  Lea's  sons  and  the  two  Tangen  brothers  in 
Liv  want  to  approach  the  universal,  the  religious, 
in  what  they  create;  yes,  even  mathematics  be- 
comes, for  Theodora,  a  divinity  which  she 
reverences. 

This  religious  striving  is  the  keynote  in  Den 
Store  Hunger.  It  is  this  quality  that  fills  and 
stamps  Peer  Holm's  character,  and  it  is  in  the 
portrayal  of  this,  that  Bojer  has  attained  his 
greatest  height  as  author. 

Peer  Holm  is,  like  the  brothers  Tangen  in  Liv, 
an  illegitimate  child,  who  is  brought  up  by  foster 
parents  in  the  country,  and  like  them  he  has  the 
unquenchable  spark  that  leads  him  onward  and 
ever  upward. 

The  religious  yearning  is  evident  in  him  from 
his  earliest  youth,  but,  as  is  natural  with  a  child, 
this  does  not  find  expression  in  faith  but  in 
moods.  Sister  Louise  is  playing  once  in  a  hospi- 
tal room  where  he  lies  sick,  "The  Great  White 
Host"  on  her  violin,  and  he  feels  himself  buoyed 
up  by  the  tones,  he  is  enveloped  by  the  "hymn- 


124  JOHAN   BOJER 

feeling,  so  that  all  difficulties  are  cleared  away 
—  so  that  one  is  borne  aloft  by  an  indescribable 
ecstasy,  which  expands  one's  soul,  till  one  em- 
braces all  infinity. " 

The  God  of  the  Bible,  whom  he  had  learned 
to  believe  in  when  he  was  a  child,  he  soon  re- 
volted against.  Louise  dies  and  Peer  feels  it  as  an 
unreasonable  injustice.  Heaven  is  closed,  fate  is 
blind,  and  mankind  left  to  its  own  resources. 
But  just  because  of  this  men  must  "rebel  against 
tyranny  on  heaven's  part."  And  Peer  feels  him- 
self to  be  a  sort  of  descendant  of  Prometheus. 
He  wants  to  join  in  lifting  the  ladder  by  which 
men  can  climb  upwards  —  higher  and  higher, 
steadily  towards  more  clearness  and  spirituality 
and  mastery  of  nature.  For  every  victory  which 
the  spirit  of  man  wins  over  nature  wrenches 
something  of  their  omnipotence  from  the  hands 
of  the  gods." 

Then  Peer  Holm  becomes  engineer  and  travels 
to  Egypt  as  missionary  of  culture  and  of  the 
future.  But  within  his  soul  still  rises  a  doubt 
whether  this  is  yet  the  way  to  reach  the  infinite. 
"Could  men  by  studying  attain  one  evening  to 
being  able  to  stretch  a  finger  upward  and  cause 


DEVELOPMENT   OF   OPTIMISM     125 

the  stars  themselves  to  sing?"  Could  science 
lead  men  on  to  the  universal?  To  the  very  feel- 
ing of  the  psalmist? 

After  several  years  of  hard,  heavy  work  in 
damming  the  Nile,  and  at  desert  railway  con- 
struction, he  came  home,  practically  through  with 
all  dreams  of  making  men  able  to  steal  more  and 
more  fire  from  Olympus.  "I  believe  that  fire  and 
steel  will  soon  brutalize  men,"  said  he.  "Ma- 
chines kill  more  and  more  of  that  which  we  call 
the  god-like  in  us." 

"For  mankind  to  progress  fast  —  you  call  that 
nothing?"  asks  his  old  schoolmate,  Langberg. 

"But,  good  heavens,  how  can  men  do  that 
when  they  rush  so?" 

"For  the  regulation  of  the  Nile  to  double  the 
grain  production  of  Egypt,  and  provide  the 
necessities  of  life  for  millions  of  men  —  that's 
nothing?" 

"My  dear  fellow,  you  think  we  have  too  few 
idiots  here  on  this  earth?  Too  little  wailing  and 
crying  out  for  justice,  and  complaining,  and 
discontent?  You  really  think  we  should  double 
the  amount  of  all  this?" 

But  how  about  the  culture  of  Europe  that  he 


v^ 


ia6  JOHAN   BOJER 

was  to  have  been  a  missionary  of?  European 
culture,  yes.  A  fellah  can  sit  a  whole  night  long 
outside  his  hut  and  give  himself  up  to  dreams. 
But  a  great  mercantile  magnate  in  Europe  dic- 
tates business  letters  in  his  automobile  while  he 
is  driving  to  the  theater.  And  in  the  parquet 
he  writes  telegrams.  Soon  he  will  be  able  to 
sit  in  his  loge  with  a  business  telephone  at  one 
ear  and  listen  to  the  music  with  the  other. 

And  Christmas  Eve  he  plays  The  Dollar  Prin- 
cess on  his  gramophone.  Yes,  God  be  praised 
for  modern  culture. 

But  a  variation  of  the  Bible  phrase  about  win- 
ning the  whole  earth  and  losing  one's  soul 
occurred  already  in  Sigurd  Braa.  "What  use  is 
it  if  I  can  one  day  take  an  airplane  out  of  my 
waistcoat  pocket  and  fly  like  an  insect,  if  my 
soul  is  just  as  poor  a  thing  as  ever?"  And  Peer 
Holm  says  here  the  same  thing  in  other  words: 
"What  use  is  it  if  the  peasant  can  one  day  fly  up 
in  the  air  in  a  wheelbarrow  if  at  the  same  time  he 
has  no  more  temples  or  holy  days  than  now? 
What  errands  can  he  have  up  in  the  clouds,  all 
the  while  he  realizes  no  heaven  over  his  soul?" 


DEVELOPMENT   OF   OPTIMISM     127 

It  is  Faust  over  again: 

Habe  nun  auch  Philosophic, 

Juristerei  und  Medicin, 

Und  leider  auch  Theologie 

Durchaus  studiert  mit  heiszem  Bemuhen. 

Da  steh  ich  nun,  ich  armer  Tor 

Und  bin  so  klug  als  wie  zuvor. 

And  thus  it  is  with  Peer  Holm.  The  technical 
prodigies  of  learning,  enlightenment,  the  modern 
culture,  what  use  are  they,  what  are  they  all 
worth?    How  do  they  satisfy  the  soul? 

And,  as  Faust  goes  seeking  from  his  study 
chamber  to  Gretchen,  so  Peer  Holm  shifts  his 
researches  from  machinery  to  Merle. 

He  lies  in  bed  one  night  dreaming,  after  he 
has  met  her:  "Oh,  your  mind  has  heretofore 
been  so  full  of  mechanics,  of  mathematical  prob- 
lems, of  steel  and  fire.  Always  more  zeal  to 
understand  everything,  know  everything,  gain 
power  over  everything.  But  the  psalm-tune  in 
you,  dead,  and  your  hunger  for  that  which  lies 
beyond  all  this,  growing  greater  and  greater. 
You  believed  it  was  Norway  you  were  yearning 
for.    Now  you  are  there,  but  is  it  enough? 


128  JOHAN   BOJER 

Merle.   Is  that  your  name,  Merle? 

There  is  nothing  to  be  compared  with  the  first 
day  of  love.  All  you  have  theretofore  learned, 
traveled,  created,  dreamed  —  that  could  all  be 
burned  quite  up,  you  would  let  it  all  go.  Now 
comes  a  spark,  the  whole  lightens  up,  you  stretch 
your  cold  hands  out  and  warm  them  and  have 
joyous  quivers  because  a  new  happiness  has  come 
into  the  world. 

And  all  that  you  ever  understood  about  your 
relations  to  the  immortal  strain  in  your  soul  — 
and  the  Being  up  there  —  and  all  that  infinite 
hereafter  —  that  is  all  at  once  so  clear  that  you 
lie  here  and  shake  with  joy  at  seeing  in  yourself 
the  solution  to  the  eternal  riddle." 

The  hunger  for  the  eternal  in  Peer  Holm's  soul 
is  apparently  assuaged  at  last.  God  up  there  is  no 
longer  "the  bloodthirsty  Jehovah"  but  "the 
golden-haired  Son  of  Light,  himself,"  who  is  paid 
reverence  to  at  the  altar  by  all  the  beautiful, 
love-animated  natures  with  a  hymn  of  joy.  And 
in  this  hymn  mankind  can  join  —  "We  send 
hardly  a  fleck  of  foam  to  heaven  from  all  the 
golden  flood  in  our  mind." 

As  Marguerite  asks  Faust  about  his  religion  so 


DEVELOPMENT   OF   OPTIMISM     129 

also  does  Merle  question  Peer  Holm.  And  he 
answers  with  a  series  of  questions.  What  do  we 
know?  What  are  we?  He  has  no  credo,  no 
dogma.  But  "Merle  began  to  smile,  her  mouth 
was  very  red  and  full,  and  finally  she  pursed  up 
her  lips  and  held  them  temptingly  towards  him." 
That  is  the  answer.  Eternity  —  what  do  we 
know  about  it?  Only  that  it  is  contained  in 
love's  happy  hour. 

For  some  time  it  seemed  as  if  Peer  Holm  would 
find  peace  in  the  idyll.  He  is  happy  in  his  love, 
he  rejoices  at  getting  peace  in  this  world,  which  is 
his,  he  feels  himself  upon  the  pinnacle  of  his 
age's  knowledge  and  notice  how  the  impressions 
and  information  he  has  acquired  become  living 
and  organic  in  his  mind. 

But  the  happiness  does  not  last.  He  "unravels 
his  life  into  a  number  of  golden  threads."  And 
one  mustn't  do  that.  Why?  Why  can  we  not  be 
satisfied  to  be  happy?  "Steel  will  not,"  says  his 
half-brother,  Ferdinand  Holm,  "steel  does  not 
want  peace.  And  fire  does  not.  And  Prome- 
theus does  not  The  spirit  of  man  has  still  too 
many  rungs  to  climb  before  it  reaches  the  top. 
Peace.  No,  my  friend,  there  is  a  power  above  you 


130  JOHAN   BOJER 

and  me  who  manages  things.  .  .  .  The  'world- 
wilP  follows  its  own  course.  There  is  no  one 
who  inquires  after  our  happiness.  The  Eternal 
will  asks  whom  it  can  use  and  who  is  unneces- 
sary.   Voila  tout" 

And  Peer  Holm  understands  that  this  is  so. 
He  is  practically  convinced  that  machine-culture 
and  technical  knowledge  do  not  make  men  better 
or  happier.  For  his  own  personal  happiness 
he  so  much  would  prefer  to  live  in  joy  with  Merle 
on  his  farm  rather  than  to  wear  himself  out  with 
sluice  work  and  machinery.  That  does  not  mat- 
ter, though,  in  the  least.  The  work  will  not  leave 
him  in  peace.  As  men's  development  cannot  be 
turned  back  to  an  earlier  form  of  culture  even 
though  it  were  a  happier  type  so  Peer  Holm  can 
not,  for  any  great  space  of  time,  thrive  in  a  more 
obscure  place  in  the  procession  of  progress  than 
he  once  had  reached.  The  spark  of  work  in  him 
is  not  extinguished.  His  talents  cannot  rest. 
The  "earth-will,"  that  is  to  say,  nature,  which 
has  given  him  creative  ability,  will  not  let  him  es- 
cape. Peer  Holm  must  forth  once  more  and  take 
his  turn  in  working  for  the  eternal  progress. 

But  if  he  was  previously  fortunate  in  every- 


DEVELOPMENT   OF   OPTIMISM     131 

thing,  now  this  happiness  deserts  him.  The 
ability  is  not  less,  but  everything  goes  wrong. 
His  fortune  he  loses  through  a  failure.  For 
one  of  his  dams  he  makes  an  estimate  of  a 
couple  of  millions  and  reckons  correctly 
and  does  brilliant  work.  But  bad  luck 
hangs  over  him.  A  vein  of  water  appears  in  the 
tunnel  where  no  one  could  have  suspected  it. 
One  of  his  engineers  makes  a  mistake  that  costs 
hundreds  of  thousands  to  repair,  another  usually 
sober  man  gets  intoxicated  and  brings  about  a 
catastrophe.  The  work  gets  finished  —  to  the 
wonder  of  all  —  but  the  cost  has  become  so 
great  that  both  he  and  his  father-in-law,  who 
has  gone  bond  for  him,  are  ruined.  Then  he 
invents  a  mowing  machine.  It  has  only  one 
small  defect,  but,  while  he  is  rectifying  this,  a 
competitor  steals  the  idea  and  makes  a  slight 
improvement,  thus  rendering  his  invention 
worthless. 

Without  money,  so  that  he  must  have  assist- 
ance to  live,  and  broken  in  health  so  that  he  can- 
not work,  this  engineer  of  world  fame  finally 
lives  like  a  poor  peasant  in  a  miserable  hut.  He 
has  had  to  let  his  two  oldest  children  go  to  others 


132  JOHAN    BOJER 

to  be  cared  for,  and  the  youngest  little  girl  is 
bitten  to  death  by  a  dog  whom  a  neighbor  sets 
on  her. 

Thus  he  has  sounded  the  depths  of  misfortune, 
is  robbed  of  everything  —  all  is  dark  about  him. 
He  is  like  Job,  poor  and  childless,  and  covered 
with  the  plague.  And  he  does  not  believe  in  God. 
What  is  left  ?    Has  life  yet  any  meaning  for  him  ? 

What  is  there  worth  while  clinging  to  now? 
Work?  This  was  the  solution  for  Carsten  Brandt 
and  for  Lea's  sons,  and  others  of  them.  The 
eternal  value  of  work,  the  comfort  in  taking  one's 
part  in  the  creation  of  new  sources  of  happiness 
for  mankind  —  Peer  Holm  had  known  this  com- 
fort as  well  as  anyone;  but  it  had  proved  too 
small  for  him,  his  longing  for  "that  which  is 
beyond"  becomes  greater  and  deeper.  And  then 
when  work  fails?  When  the  earth-will  uses  one 
and  casts  one  aside  like  a  worn-out  piece  of 
machinery?  When  all  one's  work  ends  by  one's 
being  compelled  to  eat  the  bread  of  charity  and 
sit  like  a  parish  monument  without  hope  of 
change?    What  then? 

But  then  that  bright,  radiant  love,  which  made 
life  a  festival?    That  helped  the  young  Einar 


DEVELOPMENT   OF   OPTIMISM     133 

Norby,  that  helped  Ovidia  in  Kjaerlighetens 
Oine,  and  that  helped  many  others.  And  Peer 
Holm  had  tried  this,  too.  But  his  eternal  hunger 
went  beyond  that.  Love  was  much  but  it  was  not 
enough.  And  now  unhappiness  grew  to  such 
great  proportions  as  almost  to  strangle  love. 
When  one  stands  face  to  face  with  suffering 
that  one  must  go  through  with  alone,  so  pro- 
found is  it,  what  then? 

But  the  children?  Lea  glimpsed  immortality 
through  her  children's  happy  growth.  Yes,  for 
Lea's  children  lived  and  grew  up  and  flourished 
and  had  children  themselves.  But  when  one's 
last  little  child  died  as  a  victim  of  a  man's 
wickedness?    What  then? 

Well,  still  there  are  happy  memories.  It  was 
these  the  monks  in  the  fairy  tale  rejoiced  in. 
These  it  was  that  helped  Eli  and  Sigurd  Braa 
through  trial  and  sorrow.  Could  they  not  help  — 
Peer  Holm?  No,  they  could  not  —  the  suffering 
was  too  great.  Sigurd  Braa  and  Eli  had  a  sur- 
plus of  saved-up  summer  feeling  in  reserve,  and 
it  was  great  enough  to  help  them  over  their  evil 
hour.  When  their  happiness  and  their  unhappi- 
ness are  added  together  the  sum  is  positive.    The 


( 


134  JOHAN    BOJER 

great  thing  with  them,  that  which  differentiates 
them  from  most  other  people  is  that  they  in  the 
evil  day  do  not  forget  the  happiness  they  have 
had,  but  can  draw  strength  from  it.  But  if,  on 
the  other  hand,  suffering  is  ten  times  greater 
than  joy?  If  the  reserve  happiness  is  used  up, 
and  there  is  still  a  great  way  to  the  well  of  suf- 
ferings?   What  then? 

Is  there  still  anything  beyond?  Yes,  there  is 
still  one  thing.    One  can  be  greater  than  his  fate.  fl 

When  Peer  Holm  first  feels  what  unhappiness 
is  like,  is  when  his  sister  Louisa  dies  —  then  he 
rebels  against  fate  and  against  God.  ;"It  seems 
to  him  that  God  says:  'I  will  stretch  out  my 
hand  protectingly  over  those  who  have  parents 
and  home,  brothers  and  sisters,  and  a  good  in- 
come. But  there  is  a  boy  who  is  all  alone,  who 
struggles  and  works  hard  as  best  he  can  —  take 
the  one  thing  he  has.  The  boy's  not  much 
account.  He  can  be  made  to  suffer  because  he 
is  poor,  and  I  will  topple  him  over  —  he's  nothing 
to  worry  about.    The  boy's  of  no  account.'  " 

The  words  resemble  in  a  conspicuous  manner 
those  that  are  used  in  En  Pilgrimsgang  where 
Regina  casts  up  her  account  against  God.    "The 


DEVELOPMENT   OF   OPTIMISM/ 135 

girl's  of  no  account,"  runs  the  phrase,  there,  also. 
And  the  feeling  is  the  same  as  that  which  is  the 
starting  point  for  nearly  all  Bojer's  dark  charac- 
ters. "One  can  be  the  moral  slave  of  his  ene- 
mies," says  Sigurd  Braa.  And  this  is  true 
whether  it  be  God,  or  society,  or  an  individual 
man  whom  one  thinks  of  as  an  enemy.  One  can 
let  fate  reap  bitterness  where  it  has  sown  trouble, 
hate  where  it  has  sown  suffering,  and  crime 
where  it  has  sown  enmity.  When  the  Knight 
in  the  fairy  tale  fumes  about  revenges,  it 
is  because  fate  is  his  master;  he  does  not  con- 
trol his  own  life  but  is  its  slave. 

But  is  this  necessary?  Does  a  man  need  to  let 
blind  fate  direct  his  life?  No.  One  can  be  on  his 
own  part  ruler  of  his  life. 

We  have  come  here  upon  the  kernel  of  the 
truth  Bojer  has  been  reaching  toward,  and  which 
he  has  proclaimed  in  Den  Store  Hunger,  One 
can  be  greater  than  his  fate.  The  latter  sows 
sorrow  and  man  brings  forth  joy.  It  sows  wrong 
and  man  brings  forth  generous  forgiveness.  It 
sows  coldness  and  darkness  and  despair,  and  be- 
hold! in  your  heart  grows  up  love  which  is 
stronger  than  all. 


Ap  JOHAN   BOJER 

v.  As  early  as  when  Peer  lost  his  sister,  we  see 
that  the  suffering  does  not  do  him  harm.  He 
rebels  against  God.  But  it  is  not  bitterness  and 
hate  that  result,  he  does  not  attempt  to  crush 
others  because  he  himself  has  been  beaten  to 
earth.  But  he  seeks  with  his  own  strength  to 
build  a  temple  for  the  hymn  tune  which  he  feels 
deep  down  in  his  heart,  and  it  is  the  same  thing 
that  happens  even  when  his  measure  of  suffering 
is  full. 

He  feels  how  his  character  is  cleansed  and 
purified.   As  he  writes  to  his  friend  Klaus  Broch : 
'     "I  saw  a  man  go  out  into  the  night  and  shake  his 
J     fist  at  heaven  and  earth,  a  poor-witted  creature 
I     who  refused  to  play  in  the  comedy  and  was 
therefore  washed  down  stream. 
*\  But  I  myself  sat  there  still. 

0&  *  And  I  saw  another  mannikin  cast  out,  a 
humble,  white-faced  ascetic,  who  bent  himself 
and  bowed  down  to  the  beat  of  the  lash,  and 
said:  'Do  thy  will,  the  Lord  gave,  and  the  Lord 
taketh  away.'  It  was  a  poor  creature  who 
sneaked  out  into  the  night  and  disappeared. 

But  I  myself  sat  there  still. 

I  sat  alone  on  the  uttermost  promontory  of 


DEVELOPMENT   OF   OPTIMISM     137 

life,  with  sun  and  stars  gone  out,  and  the  icy, 
meaningless  emptiness  over  me,  around  me,  and 
on  every  side  of  me." 

But  then  he  discovers  that  there  is  still  a  little 
inextinguishable  spark  within  him.  And  it  is 
strong  enough  to  make  him  triumph  over  blind 
fate.  He  takes  his  last  corn  and  goes  out  into 
the  night  and  sows  it  in  his  enemy 's  ground.  He 
does  this  not  for  the  sake  of  the  enemy;  he  does 
not  do  it  because  a  god  or  a  prophet  has  ordered 
it.    But  he  does  it  as  a  symbol  of  his  triumph. 

One  can  hardly  read  the  ending  of  Den  Store 
Hunger  without  thinking  of  Victor  Hugo.  No 
one  has  praised  more  strongly  and  finely  than  he 
the  heroism  which  Peer  Holm  attains  to,  which 
he  shows  in  nobleness  and  high  mindedness. 
Victor  Hugo  is  the  author  one  is  most  reminded 
of  when  one  reads  Bojer;  it  is  more  a  matter  of 
kindred  spirits  than  of  actual  influence,  but  the 
understanding  of  people  and  the  ideals  are  the 
same. 

Why  Jean  Valjean  in  Les  Miserables  will  re- 
main one  of  the  world's  great  characters  is  be- 
cause he  has  strength  to  do  the  superhuman.  He 
lets  himself  be  sent  to  the  galleys  in  order  to  save 


138  JOHAN   BOJER 

an  innocent  man,  and  he  saves  the  life  of  his  bit- 
terest enemy;  he  triumphs  over  blind  destiny,  be- 
cause he  is  better  than  it.  The  same  ideal 
appears  in  various  places  in  Hugo's  writing, 
especially  and  very  forcefully,  for  example,  in 
the  novel  'gj.  This  treats  of  two  men,  Lan- 
tenac  and  Gauvain,  who  fight,  each  for  his  ideal, 
Lantenac  for  the  monarchy  and  Gauvain  for  the 
revolution.  But  it  is  not  the  inspiration  of  ideals 
or  the  courage,  the  scorn  of  death  in  battle  which 
makes  them  great  men.  They  become  heroes 
in  the  moment  they  actually  desert  their  ideals, 
and  step  out  of  the  battle  in  order  to  sacrifice 
themselves  in  a  high-minded,  entirely  human 
action.  Lantenac  lets  himself  be  taken  by  the 
enemy,  in  order  to  save  three  children  from 
a  burning  castle  and  Gauvain  calls  down  the 
sentence  of  death  on  his  head  because  he 
will  not  fall  below  his  enemy  in  mercy  and 
magnanimity. 

As  in  Bojer  it  is  not  the  upright  Brutus,  but 
the  generous  and  merciful  Peer  Holm  who  is 
standard  bearer  of  ideals,  so,  in  Hugo,  it  is  not 
Cimsurdain,  who  —  like  Brutus  —  for  honor's 
sake  sentences  the  one  he  loves  most  dearly  to 


DEVELOPMENT   OF   OPTIMISM  && 

death,  but  Gauvain,  who,  in  the  name  of 
manity,  forgives  and  saves. 

Long  ago  Jesus,  who  in  Den  Store  Hunger  is 
somewhat  superiicially  dismissed  as  "the  ascetic 
on  the  cross/'  proclaimed  it  the  highest  moral 
duty  to  love  our  enemy,  and  one  has  the  right 
to  interpret  the  word  love  as  practically  synony- 
mous to  doing  good  to.  This  is  just  what 
Peer  Holm  does.  But  yet  he  is  a  far-cry 
from  being  a  Christian.  The  ideal  is  the  same. 
The  intention  is  the  same.  But  the  power 
is  different. 

When  the  Christian  "loves  his  neighbor"  it  is 
because  God's  love  lives  and  acts  through  him. 
But  Peer  Holm  doesn't  believe  in  God.  The 
strength  others  get  from  God  he  gets  from  man- 
kind. When  God  didn't,  men  created  dreams  for 
him.  The  "divine"  is,  however,  one  with  the 
deepest  in  man's  own  soul. 

Therefore  Peer  Holm  is  filled  with  sympathy 
for  men  and  pride  in  being  a  man.  It  is  not 
really  only  he,  himself,  who  triumphs  over  fate. 
He  has  never  realized  before  but  sees  and  under- 
stands it  now:  the  human  spirit  has  strength  to 
be  greater  and  better  than  the  blind  powers  that 


fi4Q>  JOHAN    BOJER 

irect  the  universe.  "By  a  careless  law  of  nature 
we  are  thrust  into  a  life  we  ourselves  have  no 
control  over,  we  are  ravaged  by  evil,  by  sick- 
ness and  sorrow,  by  fire  and  blood.  Even  the 
happiest  must  die.  In  one's  own  home  one  is 
only  on  a  visit.  One  never  knows  but  what  he 
may  be  off  and  away  in  the  morning.  And  just 
the  same,  men  smile  and  laugh  in  the  face  of  their 
horrible  destiny.  In  the  midst  of  his  serfdom, 
man  has  created  beauty  on  this  earth;  in  the 
midst  of  his  anguish,  has  he  had  enough  surplus 
ardor  in  his  soul  to  send  light  out  into  the  cold 
world  spaces  and  warm  them  up  with  a  God. 

"So  wonderful  are  you,  O  spirit  of  man.  So 
divine  are  you  in  your  own  fashion.  You  harvest 
death  and  in  return  you  sow  dreams  about  eter- 
nal life.  In  revenge  for  your  unhappiness  you 
people  the  universe  with  an  all-loving  God." 

Peer  Holm  feels  that  he  helps  "to  create  God." 

rThe  expression  savors  of  the  myotic.  But  in 
reality  it  only  means  that  he  realizes  the  divine 
in  himself,  and  through  his  acts  sets  it  free  in 
life.  What  he  calls  God,  is  also  only  a  symbol, 
particularly  of  that  which  he  feels  has  greatest 
worth,  —  "God"  is  really  an  ideal,  and  the  ideal 


DEVELOPMENT   OF   OPTIMISM     141 

is  the  outpouring  of  something  at  the  well-spring 
of  man's  nature. 

Now  there  are  also  in  Bojer's  earlier  works 
certainly  men  who  have  made  their  ideals  accord- 
ing to  their  needs,  made  God  in  their  own  image. 
But  there  are  many  false  gods  and  only  one 
true  one.  And  the  true  God  is  known  by  the 
goodness  of  the  deeds  which  are  done  in  his 
name.  As  Bjornson  says:  "Where  good  folk 
walk,  there  are  God's  paths." 

Bojer  has  again  and  again  portrayed  the 
false  gods  —  those  whom  men  create  to  take 
the  responsibility  for  their  bad  actions.  One 
can,  like  Ovidia  when  she  lost  her  beauty, 
and  like  the  sorrowful  missionary  who 
preached  discontent  throughout  the  whole 
country,  create  a  God  for  himself  as  a  pro- 
tection, to  lighten  his  own  bitterness  by 
spreading  it  out  over  others.  One  can,  like  the 
knight  in  the  fairy  tale,  call  God  into  service  in 
order  to  render  one's  wars  of  revenge  holy.  One 
can,  like  the  different  peoples  in  time  of  war, 
create  for  himself  gods  to  slay  his  enemy  with. 
But  all  these  gods  are  false  because  the  deeds 
which  are  done  in  their  name  are  evil.    They  are 


m^tzj  JOHAN   BOJER 

hot  created  by  great  men  triumphing  over  hard 
and  blind  destinies.  But  they  are  created  by 
small,  weak  men  who  strike  back  when  they  are 
struck,  and  in  their  anxiety  to  defend  them- 
selves, say  that  there  is  a  god  who  guides  their 
hand. 

^_  Peer  Holm  sounds  the  lowest  depths  of  suffer- 
ing but  he  does  not  create  himself  a  God  who 
bids  him  cool  his  desire  for  revenge  by  punishing 
his  neighbor  for  his  sins  or  going  out  along  the 
highroad  to  get  other  people  to  weep  with  him. 
But,  out  of  the  deepest  good  in  man's  nature,  out 
of  love,  he  creates  the  one,  true  God  who  knows 
neither  hate  nor  revenge  nor  enmities  but  is 

**  made  of  mercy  and  generosity,  the  most  sublime 
feelings  men  can  feel. 

Bojer  has  portrayed  small  men  who  let  them- 
selves be  subdued  by  fate  and  do  evil  because 
they  themselves  have  suffered  some  little  wrong, 
and  he  has  described  greater  men,  who  because 
of  the  happiness  they  have  experienced,  have 
strength  enough  to  stand  up  against  one's  for- 
tune, and  preserve  the  wealth  of  their  spirit. 

•*  But  high  above  them  all  stands  Peer  Holm.  For 
all  those  who  would  escape  responsibility  —  and 


DEVELOPMENT   OF   OPTIMISM '  143 

create  a  God  out  of  their  weakness  —  for  all 
those  who  can  not  absorb  themselves  in  their 
work  and  trust  in  the  beneficence  of  the  future, 
for  all  those  who  have  not  saved  up  enough  holi- 
day feeling  to  be  able  to  carry  them  through  un- 
happiness,  this  character  points  to  faith  in  the 
divine  in  men's  nature,  and  to  the  great  problem, 
to  lift  one's  self  above  happiness  and  unhappi- 
ness  and  take  part  in  the  creation  of  the  goodness 
and  love  of  God. 

Peer  Holm  reaches  the  point  where  his  hunger 
for  the  eternal  is  satisfied,  and  when  he,  in  the 
TJaTfcnesTof  the  night,  goes  out  to  sow  his  last 
corn  in  his  enemy's  field,  then  we  feel  it  as  com- 
fort and  encouragement:  he  is  the  sovereign  man 
who,  by  his  own  strength,  triumphs  over  evil./ 

s\  Den  Store  Hunger  is  not  alone  richer  and 
deeper  in  ideas  than  are  any  of  Bojer's  earlier 
writings,  but  it  is  also,  artistically  speaking,  the 
most  mature  and  distinguished  he  has  created 
up  to  the  present.  But  the  difference  in  attitude 
towards  life  which  distinguishes  the  second  from 
the  third  period  in  his  authorship  results  also 
quite  naturally  in  a  difference  in  style.    In  the 


144  JOHAN    BOJER 

skeptical,  critical  period  his  writing  is  stamped 
by  the  dissecting  psychological  analysis  which 
results  in  producing  a  style  that  is  bright  with 
pregnancy  and  clearness ;  but  after  his  optimism 
forces  its  way  through,  his  style  takes  on  more 
and  more  lyric  color.  That  Bojer  had  ability  for 
lyric  description  we  already  had  perceived  in 
spots  here  and  there  in  the  earlier  works,  and 
particularly  in  the  fairy  tales,  but  this  ability  is 
used  and  developed  in  the  later  plays  and  novels 
until,  in  Den  Store  Hunger,  it  comes  to  its  richest 
blossoming.^ 

There  is  an  exceptional  fineness  and  charm 
in  the  description  of  Peer  Holm's  relation  to 
Sister  Louise  and  of  his  home-coming  to  Nor- 
way and  of  the  first  coming  of  love.  And  his  wife, 
*-  Merle,  is,  next  to  Eli  in  Sigurd  Braa,  Bojer's 
finest  woman  character.  As  a  young  girl, 
when  she  sacrifices  her  own  desires  and  has  yet 
brightness  enough  to  fill  the  home  with  sunshine 
and  be  comfort  and  encouragement  for  her  sick 
mother,  and  as  a  wife  in  good  times  and  bad,  and 
finally  in  misfortune,  she  stands  before  us  warm 
and  strong,  full  of  tenderness  and  rich  in  that 
ability  of  a  woman  to  suffer  and  sacrifice  without 
bitterness. 


DEVELOPMENT   OF   OPTIMISM     145 

Den  Store  Hunger  is  a  book  full  of  life.  There 
are  numberless  situations  that  are  drawn  in 
sharp  outline  and  impress  themselves  on  the 
memory.  The  shark  fishing  in  the  beginning  is, 
for  instance,  a  pearl  of  story-telling  art,  and 
nearly  all  the  descriptions  of  Peer's  life  with 
Louise  and  his  struggles  to  advance  are  pre- 
sented with  a  genuineness  and  a  graphic  force 
that  hardly  could  be  greater.  And  the  same  is 
true  of  much  of  the  following:  the  wanderings 
over  the  fields,  the  first  meeting  with  Merle,  the 
evening  when  they,  too,  feast  alone,  and,  most 
especially,  the  evening  when  she  has  prepared 
everything  in  festive  state  for  his  home-coming 
and  waits  till  at  last  he  comes  —  and  can  hardly 
spare  time  to  notice  her  because  the  work  has 
completely  taken  possession  of  him. 

But,  despite  all  its  life  and  graphic  force,  Den 
Store  Hunger  is  still  not  actually  a  realistic  novel. 
It  has,  as  do  nearly  all  of  Bojer's  books,  some- 
thing of  the  fairy  tale  element  in  it.  Bojer  has 
a  fondness  for  the  grand  scale  which  is  apparent 
here,  also.  LLea's  sons  did  not  merely  cultivate 
the  farm  and  work  in  the  parish,  but  the  results 
of  their  work  reached  out  over  the  world  and 


146  JOHAN    BOJER 

were  of  use  to  all  men.  Hans  Lunde  became  not 
only  a  leader  in  his  district  and  a  member  of 
Parliament  but  he  came  to  set  his  stamp  on  all 
public  life.  The  missionary  and  agitator  in  Vort 
Rige  infected  the  whole  country  with  their  ideals. 
Regina's  searching  for  her  child  took  on  gigantic 
proportions.  Andreas  Berght  in  Fangen  Som 
Sang  had  the  ability  absolutely  to  transform  him- 
self at  will.  Norby  is  not  let  go  of  till  every 
shadow  of  doubt  is  erased  in  his  soul,  Wangen 
not  before  he  has  committed  the  crime  he  is 
accused  of.  Brother  Gregory  in  Paa  Minderness 
O  has  strength  to  last  him  his  whole  life  through 
because  of  a  single  happy  moment.  Everywhere 
we  trace  this  tendency  towards  the  absolute, 
this  impulse  to  carry  everything  to  the  ultimate 
goal;  and  this  is  true  of  Den  Store  Hunger,  also. 
First  are  shown  the  steps  in  Peer  Holm's 
life.  Everything  succeeds  for  him,  in  every 
department  of  life;  as  a  matter  of  course  he  is 
number  one,  engineer  on  a  world  scale,  a  power 
that  no  difficulty  can  deter.  Then  comes  the 
period  of  rest  in  his  life,  and  this  also  is  absolute; 
the  idyll  fills  his  soul  completely  so  that  there 
is  room  for  nothing  else.    And,  in  the  end,  he  is 


DEVELOPMENT   OF   OPTIMISM     147 

struck  down  by  the  acme  of  misfortune  and 
falls  as  rapidly  as  he  previously  rose;  every- 
thing is  unsuccessful,  everything  crashes  down  at 
once,  not  one  point  of  light  is  left  in  the  darkness. 
There  is,  of  course,  an  element  of  danger  in 
this  exaggeration,  this  voluntary  unsettling  of 
the  proportions,  this  majestic  fairy-tale  disre- 
gard for  probability.  But  from  it  can  come  a 
certain  grandeur  in  the  portrait,  something  uni- 
versal, which  is  attained  with  difficulty  when 
everything  is  kept  in  scale.  In  Moder  Lea  the 
myth  element  and  the  realistic  novel  element 
existed  side  by  side,  unwelded,  and  the  result 
was  unsatisfying,  but  in  Den  Store  Hunger  the 
elements  are  combined,  and  the  difficult  thing 
has  been  accomplished.  Peer  Holm  is,  in  all  his 
life's  single  situations,  a  living,  individual  figure. 
But  his  career  as  a  whole  makes  of  him  a  symbol 
of  humanity's  eternal  struggle. 

There  are  writers  who  observe  life  with  won- 
dering respect.  They  love  it  without  judging  it, 
they  desire  only  to  serve  it,  and  they  paint  it  with 
meticulousness  and  dexterous  realism,  as  it  is 
mirrored  in  their  minds.    Johan  Bojer  is,  as  we 


148  JOHAN    BOJER 

have  seen,  not  of  this  class  of  writer.  The  deep 
excitement  at  the  marvel  of  life  one  finds  little 
of  in  his  art.  He  does  not  content  himself  with 
observation;  he  probes  and  classifies.  He  does 
not  humbly  take  his  material  out  of  life's  hand, 
but  creates  it  according  to  his  own  desire. 

Bojer  is,  as  none  else  in  modern  Norwegian 
literature,  a  writer  of  ideas.  He  thinks,  brood- 
ingly  and  painfully,  over  life  and  its  problems; 
he  seeks  to  penetrate  to  the  source  of  its  laws, 
its  ways,  and  its  values,  and  the  characters  and 
destinies  which  he  portrays  are  the  expression 
of  this  thinking.  "Art  is  realized  philosophy," 
says  Friedrich  Hebbel,  and  the  definition  very 
beautifully  applies  to  Bojer's  writing,  as  it  does 
to  Hebbel's  own.  The  characters  in  his  books 
are  but  seldom  there  for  their  own  sake,  they  are 
illustrations  and  examples;  he  experiments  with 
them  and  uses  them  as  objects  for  demonstrat- 
ing; by  means  of  them  he  states  and  develops 
his  problems  in  symbolic  form. 

Both  in  Zola  and  Ibsen  one  finds  something 
of  the  same  thing;  but  it  is  chiefly  Bjornson,  who 
stands  as  Bojer's  most  immediate  and  direct 
predecessor  —  not  alone  in  regard  to  optimism 


DEVELOPMENT   OF   OPTIMISM     149 

but  also  in  his  style.  Also  Bjornson  in  his  inner- 
most soul  was  a  preacher,  too ;  also  for  him  was 
it  rather  more  often  the  idea  and  not  the  un- 
conscious impression  that  was  the  starting  point. 
But,  in  the  beginning  of  the  twentieth  century, 
Bojer  is  a  solitary  figure,  and  he  has  often  been 
branded  as  an  epigon.  This,  however,  is  unjust. 
The  form  of  writing  that  is  his,  has  had  and 
will  have  reason  for  existence  and  validity  for 
all  time. 

The  danger  of  a  style  such  as  Bojer's  is  that 
the  unconscious  impressions  may  be  lost,  that 
the  whole  effect,  the  right  facet,  the  whim- 
sical twists  and  turns  may  be  wiped  out  or  ren- 
dered stiff  by  the  pushing  to  the  fore  of  the  ideas. 
But  this  need  not  happen,  and  as  a  rule,  does  *;.' 
not  happen  with  Bojer.  Most  often  it  is  with 
him  as  with  Bjornson:  the  characters  which  per- 
haps originally  were  brought  in  for  the  sake 
of  the  ideas,  became  luxuriantly  alive  in  his 
author-mind,  and  developed  into  real  human  be- 
ings. And  on  the  other  hand  this  style  of  writ- 
ing escapes  easily  the  opposite  danger,  that 
which  affects  the  realism  of  our  day:  — of  be- 
coming klein  kunst,  being  taken  by  the  surface 


T* 


ISO  JOHAN   BOJER 

and  not  by  the  inner  meaning,  where  the  deeper 
perspective  is  found,  and  where  what  Oehlen- 
schagler  called  the  "basic  harmony"  resounds. 

There  are  two  methods  for  writers  to  employ. 
They  can  increase  our  knowledge  of  humanity 
and  our  understanding  of  it,  enrich  our  collec- 
tion of  world  pictures,  and  deepen  our  feeling  for 
life  by  picturing  the  differences,  the  nuances 
and  the  distinctions,  showing  us  sides  of  life  we 
don't  know,  and  men  whose  spirit  is  new  to  us. 
But  they  can  also  give  us  the  universally  known 
joys.  "It  is  not  the  individual  and  peculiar  that 
is  great,"  says  Bjornson,  "although  this  is  what 
glitters  most;  it  is  the  universal,  that  is  great, 
that  lifts  the  heart  and  the  thoughts  and  gives 
millions  of  echoes."  The  reason  that  Romeo  and 
Juliet's  words  of  love  give  our  hearts  a  thrill  is 
not  because  their  love  is  of  a  different  sort  from 
ours,  but  just  because,  through  them,  we  get  an 
outlet,  an  expression,  of  what  we  ourselves  felt 
or  feel.  The  reason  why  Faust's  monologue  in 
the  study  is  of  such  great  effect  is  not  because  we 
become  more  deeply  and  strongly  aware  of  our 
delusions  and  our  own  inner  struggles.   And  why 


DEVELOPMENT   OF   OPTIMISM     151 

Peer  Holm's  triumph  over  fate  grips  and  seizes 
us,  is  not  because  we  learn  to  know  a  new  and 
riquant  character,  but  because  the  generosity 
and  mercy  in  our  own  hearts,  which  perhaps  had 
become  overgrown  by  pettiness  and  anxieties, 
stir,  so  that  we  know  they  are  alive,  and  feel  our- 
selves, thus,  related  to  the  triumphant  heroism 
of  the  man. 

And  Bjornson  is  right.  That  which  —  if  one 
excepts  comic  writing  —  lifts  a  character  up 
above  the  ordinary  and  makes  it  worthy  to  live,  is 
not  the  complexity,  the  piquancy,  all  that  distin- 
guishes it  as  individual,  but  it  is  the  universal 
quality  and  its  significance  for  humanity,  the 
animation,  the  power  of  feeling  which  it  pos- 
sesses. The  more  intensive,  the  stronger  effect 
the  character  is  to  make,  the  more  simple  and 
humanly  usual  must  he  be.  That  which  makes 
Den  Store  Hunger  so  distinguished  a  piece  of 
work,  is  not  all  the  small  characteristics  and 
realistic  traits,  but  it  is  the  strength  of  the  feel- 
ing which  rages  in  Peer  Holm's  soul,  the  eternal 
strife,  that  will  not  let  him  have  peace  before 
he  attains  to  the  point  where  the  world  is  con- 
quered and  the  divine  reached. 


1 52  JOHAN   BOJER 

If  Bojer's  writing  in  the  future  is  marked  to 
the  same  degree  by  this  deep  grasp  and  this 
great  daring,  then  will  his  works  live  when  that 
of  most  of  his  contemporaries  is  forgotten. 


VI 

SQUARING   ACCOUNTS   WITH 
DELUSIONS 

IN  the  collection  of  fairy  tales,  Hvide  Fugle 
(White  Birds),  which  appeared  in  1904,  is 
found  a  story,  Drommen  (The  Dream),  which, 
in  symbolic  form,  gives  the  original  type  of  a 
number  of  Bojer's  characters,  both  in  the  novels 
we  have  treated  and  in  those  next  following. 

It  relates  how  a  young  knight  who,  through 
treachery,  came  into  his  enemy's  power,  was  held 
confined  in  a  dungeon,  where  he  must  die  of 
hunger  and  all  kinds  of  ill  treatment.  But,  how- 
ever, he  is  freed  by  an  enchantingly  lovely  fairy 
who  loves  him,  and  would  take  him  to  the  land 
of  eternal  youth,  there  to  wed  with  him.  He  is 
willing  to  follow  her,  but  first  he  wants  revenge 
on  the  man  that  has  done  him  such  great  wrong, 
and  she  must  wait  while  he  gathers  his  follow- 
ers together  and  goes  forth  with  fell  purpose 
against  his  enemy.    She  binds  up  his  wounds 

153 


154  JOHAN   BOJER 

after  the  battle,  and  asks  if  he  is  ready  now  to 
follow  her.  "No,"  he  answers  —  first  he  must 
find  the  one  who  dealt  him  this  wound;  before 
that  one  has  been  punished  he  cannot  have  peace 
in  his  own  soul.  Again  must  the  fairy  wait, 
and  again  he  went  forth  to  battle,  and  was 
brought  home  unconscious  from  his  wounds. 
And  hardly  was  he  well  again  before  he  would 
have  new  revenge.  In  vain  for  her  to  tell  him 
that  the  struggle  would  be  endless;  he  answered 
that,  this  time,  it  was  not  himself  he  would 
avenge,  he  would  conquer  his  enemy  for  his  fel- 
low men's  sake,  because  this  man  had  done  much 
evil  and  was  a  curse  to  the  whole  country. 

"Young  Sir  Knight,"  said  the  fairy,  "begin  you 
now  to  love  unknown  men,  because  there  is  one 
whom  you  hate?"  But  she  talked  to  deaf  ears; 
he  set  out  to  do  battle  again,  this  time  against 
wrong  and  the  evil  among  men. 

And  the  battle  was  on.  He  realized  that  he 
had  often  done  wrong  —  and  he  fought  on  to 
drown  this  consciousness.  At  last  he  became 
religious  and  fought  for  God  and  the  blessed 
faith.  Not  till  he  is  old,  and  has  no  longer 
strength  to  fight,  would  he  follow  the  fairy  to  the 


DELUSIONS  155 

land  of  eternal  youth  —  and  then  it  is,  of  course, 
too  late. 

If  we  analyze  this  fairy  tale,  we  see  that  there 
are  two  traits  that  express  the  Knight's  charac- 
ter. One  is  that  he  is  dominated  by  a  single 
all-controlling  feeling  which  blinds  him  and 
makes  him  set  everything  else  on  one  side  for 
its  sake.  And  the  other  is  that  this  feeling 
which  began  as  something  entirely  personal,  later 
burst  its  bonds  and  assumed  an  ideal  character. 

Both  things  are  characteristic  of  most  of  the 
characters  we  are  to  examine,  but  we  shall,  for 
the  moment,  hold  ourselves  to  the  first  stage, 
and  by  the  previously  used  psychological  process, 
make  this  clear  by  several  examples. 

In  the  great  trial  scene  in  Moder  Lea,  where 
Hans  Lunde's  wife,  Inga,  stood  accused  of  child 
murder,  we  heard  —  while  Inga  herself  was  be- 
ing led  in  —  first  something  about  the  court's 
members  and  their  different  potentialities. 

The  advisory  juryman  had  been  to  a  political 
banquet  till  late  into  the  night  and  had  been 
waked  in  the  morning  by  noisy  carpenters.  Be- 
cause he  had  to  get  up  before  noon  and  undergo 
this  exertion  here  in  the  court,  he  sat  there  in 


156  JOHAN   BOJER 

a  bad  humor.  Although  he  was  scrupulous 
enough  not  to  want  to  vent  this  on  the  prisoner, 
yet  it  had  excited  him  nervously,  and  now  lay  in 
wait,  back  of  his  judgment. 

The  state-advocate's  wife,  the  day  before, 
had  been  delivered  of  child,  and  in  the  light 
of  this  fatherly  joy,  Inga's  crime  seemed  to  this 
man  all  the  more  frightful.  He  was  firmly  con- 
vinced that  the  severest  penalty  was  the  right 
one,  and  had  prepared  a  profound  and  strong 
brief  against  the  prisoner.  The  attorney  for 
the  defense  was  only  concerned  with  the  idea 
of  getting  Inga  freed,  and  as  he  thought  the 
surest  means  was  to  get  a  verdict  of  insanity,  he 
had,  without  intermission,  sought  for  a  moment 
which  could  show  her  not  in  her  right  mind,  and 
had  based  his  defense  on  this,  without  making 
the  slightest  effort  to  enter  into  her  state  of 
mind  or  understand  her  motives. 

Also  the  ten  jurymen  had  prepared  them- 
selves for  their  tasks  as  well  as  they  could. 

The  group  consisted  of  four  peasants,  three 
schoolmasters,  a  tradesman  and  two  laborers. 
Of  the  four  peasants,  two  were  religious  and 
both  had  agreed  beforehand  that  this  was  a  grave 


DELUSIONS  157 

sin,  so  she  obviously  should  be  pronounced 
guilty.  The  two  others  were  political  opponents 
and,  therefore,  one  was  against  Inga  because  the 
other  was  for  her.  All  four  peasants  were  thus 
saved  head-work  in  this  case. 

The  three  schoolmasters,  who  had  all  fought 
for  jury,  when  it  was  on  the  party  program, 
agreed  that  they,  with  their  practical  layman's 
judgment,  understood,  in  a  very  much  better 
way,  about  law  and  justice  than  academic  law- 
yers. But  here  their  agreement  ended,  because 
one  had  an  unexpressed  visionary  idea  that  all 
punishment  vitiated  the  criminal,  "he  had  read 
that  in  a  newspaper,  and,  straightway,  that  had 
become  his  conviction."  The  other  was  afraid 
that  the  chief  barrister  would  not  respect  him 
sufficiently,  and  he,  therefore,  was  only  con- 
cerned with  making  an  effort  to  seem  what  he 
thought  was  expected  of  him.  The  third,  finally, 
was  concerned  with  making  an  impressive 
speech  when  the  jury  was  called  back  —  he 
knew  not,  in  the  least,  what  about,  but  only  set 
his  mind  on  being  opposed  to  the  others,  be- 
cause it  seemed  amusing  to  be  different. 

The  tradesman  was  practically  determined  to 


158  JOHAN   BOJER 

acquit  the  woman  on  purely  conscientious 
grounds,  because  his  own  party  organ  for  a  long 
while  had  advocated  the  contrary.  Both  labor- 
ers agreed  that  punishment  was  only  meted  out 
to  poor  people,  and  so  this  attempt  to  have  the 
farmer's  wife  declared  insane  had  immediately 
awakened  their  distrust. 

Each  of  these  ten  men  had  put  on  a  look  of 
wisdom.  None  of  them  was  in  doubt  that  his 
premature  decision  was  essentially  predomi- 
nant, or  that  justice  to-day  should  see  the  light. 

We  see,  therefore,  here  a  group  of  men-officers 
of  the  law  and  jury  members,  all  of  whom  had 
this  in  common,  that  they  were  out  of  condition 
to  judge  impartially.  A  frame  of  mind  or  a  pass- 
ing feeling  (as  among  the  jury  and  the  accusers), 
a  general  way  of  looking  at  life,  or  a  personal 
predisposition  (as  among  the  jury  members)  had 
become  the  determining  center  of  their  con- 
sciousness, an  association  center,  which  was  so 
dominating  that  it  determined  beforehand  what 
new  feeling  and  concept  might  get  entrance  into 
their  consciousness. 

Such  things  —  as,  for  example,  intense 
determining  feelings  —  central  predispositions, 


DELUSIONS  159 

which  color  all  impressions,  and  even  can  bring 
about  natural  selection,  so  that  all  that  does 
not  harmonize  with  them  is  excluded,  are  of 
course  well-known  phenomena.  A  single 
annoyance  can  bring  it  to  pass  that  one  is  in 
a  state  to  be  irritated  by  everything,  while  a 
great  joy  can  make  one  see  all  life  rose  colored, 
A  botanist,  an  aesthete,  and  a  farmer  will  see 
different  things  in  a  pretty  weed.  To  the  botanist 
it  is  an  object  for  study,  to  the  aesthete  a  bit 
of  beauty,  to  the  farmer  an  enemy.  The  differ- 
ent central  predisposition  between  the  aesthete 
and  the  farmer  not  only  leads  to  different  inter- 
pretations about  plants,  but  their  interpretations 
set  loose  antagonistic  feelings  —  respectively  joy 
and  irritation;  it  can  even  lead  to  antagonistic 
actions,  in  that  one  will  seek  to  preserve  the 
plant;  the  other,  to  destroy  it. 

The  different  central  attitudes  of  mind  lead 
also  to  different  results,  but  therewith  follows 
the  possibility  of  the  erroneousness  of  these  re- 
sults. Both  the  consideration  of  beauty  and 
that  of  usefulness  in  the  above  example  can  be 
one-sided,  and  that  leads  to  distortion  in  the 
interpretation. 


160  JOHAN   BOJER 

This  central  predisposition,  capable  of  elimi- 
nating, coloring,  shaping  and  modifying,  can, 
obviously,  be  extraordinarily  fraught  with  des- 
tiny. Even  the  elements  of  which  the  central 
predisposition  is  formed  can  be  false,  founded 
on  delusion  and  deception.  Or  this  attitude  of 
mind  may  have  value  in  a  certain  limited  area. 
But  stretch  its  power  beyond  this,  and  it  will 
lead  to  most  disquieting  one-sidedness  and  in- 
fatuation. Even  false  and  one-sided  and  nar- 
row views  can  have  such  an  absolute  power  that 
those  whose  conscious  life  is  controlled  by  them 
can,  thereby,  come  to  a  completely  deluded  atti- 
tude toward  life.  The  standard  of  values  is 
faulty,  and  the  greatest  unhappiness  and  crime 
may  result. 

It  is  apparent  to  what  a  high  degree  the 
"dark"  characters  in  Bojer  are  stamped  with 
one-sided  and  passionate  central  predispositions. 
In  Et  Folketog  and  Den  Evige  Krig  it  is  the 
party;  which  (for  example  in  Hegge's  case,  and, 
in  any  case  for  a  time,  in  Samuel  Brandt's)  has 
become  the  center  of  their  soul  life,  about  which 
everything  turns.  Regard  for  the  party  destroys 
these  men's  proper  connection  with  other  inter- 


DELUSIONS  161 

ests,  their  work,  their  relation  to  family,  and 
society's  claim  on  others  for  charity  and  real 
good  feeling.  This  one  interest  has  become  the 
absolute  standard  in  their  judgment  of  life,  and 
the  one-sidedness,  the  falsification  and  distortion 
of  all  values,  which  follows,  brings  unhappiness 
to  them  and  to  others. 

Also  Hakon  Hakonsen  and  Hans  Lunde  in 
Moder  Lea  look  at  life  through  glasses  that 
falsify  the  picture.  Two  things  determine  their 
whole  life's  interpretation;  the  fixed  conviction 
of  their  own  boundless  value,  and  the  passionate 
impulse  to  see  this  usefulness  recognized  by 
others.  Over-valuation  of  self  makes  them  al- 
ways lay  the  responsibility  for  every  wrong  on 
others  instead  of  on  themselves,  and  the  thirst 
for  prestige  and  popularity  leads  them  —  as  is 
reasonable  enough  —  farther  and  farther  into 
humbug. 

The  following  group  of  Bojer's  writings,  which 
takes  its  stamp  from  the  three  novels,  En  Pil- 
grims gang  (a  Pilgrimage)  (1902),  Troens  Magt 
(The  Power  of  a  Lie)  (1903),  and  Vort  Rige 
(Our  Kingdom)  (1908),  treat  almost  entirely 
psychological  instances  of  this  sort. 


1 62  JOHAN    BOJER 

In  the  first  of  them,  En  Pilgrimsgang,  is  por- 
trayed a  woman  who  had  been  betrayed  and  had 
borne  a  child  at  a  maternity  home.  As  she  had 
no  money  and  saw  no  way  to  care  for  the  child, 
she  submitted  to  its  adoption  by  outsiders  with- 
out being  allowed  to  know  who  the  foster  parents 
were.  Later,  however,  her  natural  longing  for 
the  child  awoke,  grew  and  grew,  until,  at  last, 
all  her  thoughts  turned  on  how  she  might  find 
it  again.  This  was  apparently  impossible,  but 
all  her  ideas  were  colored  by  the  desire  so  that 
the  difficulties  appeared  less,  and  the  moral 
scruples,  which  her  course  provoked,  faded  out. 

There  is  a  crucial  and  characteristic  scene 
where  Regina,  for  the  first  time,  faced  the  fact 
that  it  would  be  necessary  to  commit  an  act 
which,  in  itself,  was  revolting  to  her  moral  in- 
stinct. She  was  about  to  marry  a  man  whom 
she  did  not  love,  merely  to  get  money  and  the 
chance  to  set  on  foot  inquiries  for  the  child. 
Her  conscience,  as  has  been  said,  revolted,  but 
it  was  apparent  that  the  passionate  desire  had 
such  a  power  over  all  her  ideas  that  it  con- 
structed a  defense  of  her  course  of  action  with 
which  she  managed  to  satisfy  herself;  and  the 


DELUSIONS  163 

author  shows  undoubted  insight  when  he  lets 
this  defense  speak  for  itself  as  a  complaint 
against  other  people. 

"What  has  this  man  done  to  you,  that  you 
should  use  him  in  this  way?"  she  asks  herself. 
"No,  he  has  done  nothing  to  me.  But  have 
not  others  used  me  also  —  and  what  have  I 
done?  First,  Folden  (the  betrayer)  — he  used 
me  to  make  his  summer  pleasant;  he  must  have 
known  that  he,  at  the  same  time,  was  breaking  a 
heart  and  laying  waste  a  life,  but  he  used  me 
none  the  less,  and  God  lets  him  live  happily  now. 

"Then  they  used  me  at  the  hospital  —  they 
used  me  to  study  me  —  even  when  I  was  almost 
dead  of  shame.  And  the  strangers  and  the  doc- 
tor who  stole  the  child  away  from  me  —  they 
used  me.  Yes,  and  it's  even  so  with  God.  I 
have  trusted  him,  but  it  seems  all  right  to  him 
too,  not  to  pay  too  much  attention  to  the  girl. 
Let  her  moan  —  it's  no  great  matter.  There 
is  a  married  couple  who  have  need  of  a  child  — 
they  use  the  girl  —  it  may,  of  course,  bring 
her  eternal  unhappiness,  but  they  use  her  just 
the  same!  There's  no  need  to  consider  the 
girl! " 


1 64  JOHAN    BOJER 

She  is  unhappy  —  feels  herself  injured;  it 
seems  to  her  that  the  whole  world  was  leagued 
against  her,  and  so  she  thought  she  had  a  right 
to  strike  back.  From  a  dispassionate  point  of 
view,  it  is,  of  course,  clear  that  the  fact  of  peo- 
ple's having  "used"  her  obviously  does  not  give 
her  the  least  right  to  "use"  other  people.  But  her 
point  of  view  is  wholly  passionate.  All  the 
strength  of  her  nature  is  directed  towards  the 
one  end  —  to  find  the  child.  This  is  like  a 
plank  that  she  has  caught  hold  of  in  the  ship- 
wreck of  her  life,  and  any  means  that  seem  to 
her  necessary  to  use  get  the  excuse  of  self- 
defense. 

Therefore  she  married  the  man  to  get  his 
money,  drove  him  to  his  death  so  as  to  be  un- 
trammeled,  and  then  set  about  moving  heaven 
and  earth  to  find  the  child.  The  author  does 
not  finish  with  her  till  she  is  far  gone  in  mono- 
mania. All  life's  great  confusion  of  interrelated 
aims  and  interdependent  calls  is,  for  her,  simpli- 
fied to  a  single  problem:  How  shall  I  find  my 
child?  And  so  it  ends  by  her  going  wildly  and 
incessantly  from  place  to  place.  Disappoint- 
ment piles  itself  upon  disappointment,  despair 


DELUSIONS  1 6s 

grows,  but  always  she  discovers  new  clues,  new 
possibilities,  which  she  recklessly  sets  out  to  fol- 
low. Never  does  she  see  any  result,  and  never 
is  she  able  to  rest. 

Regina  in  En  Pilgrimsgang  becomes  a  crim- 
inal in  the  effort  to  get  her  child  back  again. 
In  Troens  Magt  we  hear  of  two  men,  Norby  and 
Wangen,  who  both  became  criminals  in  fighting 
for  that  which  each  respectively  felt  to  be  right. 

The  book  begins  with  giving  us,  partly,  an  in- 
troduction to  Norby's  character,  partly,  a 
glimpse  of  his  state  of  mind  at  the  time.  We 
get  to  know  that  he  is  a  capable  and  active  man, 
but  that  regard  for  people's  opinion  plays  too 
great  a  role  in  his  life;  when  he  had  struck  a 
bargain  in  timber  he  thought,  first  and  foremost, 
with  self-satisfaction,  of  others'  lack  of  success, 
and  when  he  was  unlucky,  he  was  irritated,  not 
so  much  at  the  wasted  money  as  at  the  fact  that 
it  was  now  other  people's  turn  to  hug  themselves; 
we  see  also,  that  his  ability,  nowithstanding  his 
sturdy  character,  is  not  within  himself  but  is 
dependent  on  others'  judgment,  and  we  realize 
that  this  weakness  can  have  dangerous  results. 

In  the  next  place,  his  state  of  mind  is  a  matter 


166  JOHAN   BOJER 

of  the  moment:  he  has  just  had  a  matter  go 
against  him  in  the  school  board,  which  had 
greatly  perturbed  him.  Then,  his  step-son  had 
begged  for  a  new  advance  on  his  inheritance,  and 
this  had  added  to  his  irritation.  He  is  now  in 
such  a  state  of  mind,  that  "each  new  irritation 
seems  like  a  blow  upon  a  previous  wound,"  and 
when  he  then  hears  that  Wangen  has  gone  bank- 
rupt, the  two  thousand  which  he  had  signed 
notes  for,  and  which  would  otherwise  not  have 
played  any  important  role  for  him,  assumed  the 
shape  of  a  catastrophe.  On  the  way  home,  with 
all  these  annoyances  weighing  on  him,  he  began 
to  get  gloomy  at  the  prospect  of  the  scene  which 
awaited  him,  when  he  must  tell  his  wife  that 
he,  at  his  age,  had  signed  a  note,  and  now  had 
lost  money,  so  he  sat  and  worked  himself  up  to 
still  greater  anger  against  the  man  who  seemed 
to  him  the  cause  of  his  annoyance. 

Then  he  reaches  home  and  is  tired  both  from 
the  long  drive  in  the  cold  and  from  the  various 
irritations.  And  we  realize  that  all  these  cir- 
cumstances, together  with  the  comfortable  snug 
room  and  the  pleasant  family  life  he  now  comes 
into  —  all  combine  to  bring  his  intentions  to  the 


DELUSIONS  167 

single  point:  that  he  will  have  peace  and  will 
pay  any  price  to  avoid  a  scene.  It  comes  about 
therefore,  very  intelligibly,  that  he,  when 
Wangen's  failure  is  mentioned  and  it  is  said 
that  the  latter  had  spoken  of  an  endorsement, 
waves  the  matter  away  with  a  half  lie,  so  that 
they  get  the  impression  that  he  had  not  signed 
the  note. 

Now  rumor  gets  a  start.  If  Norby  had 
not  signed,  then  Wangen  must  have  forged. 
And  the  rumor  spread  rapidly.  Norby  was  too 
slow  in  speaking  to  put  a  brake  on  the  progress 
of  the  report  immediately,  and  later,  this  became 
more  and  more  difficult.  At  last,  it  had  gone  so 
far  that  his  wife  went  to  the  justice  of  the  peace 
and  accused  Wangen  of  forgery.  And  then 
Norby  could  not  go  about  the  country  without 
exposing  both  her  and  himself  to  laughter.  He 
brooded  and  brooded  over  how  he  could  clear 
the  matter  up,  and  he  began  to  realize  how  diffi- 
cult it  was,  with  the  most  upright  and  fair  mo- 
tives, to  make  a  wrong  right  again.  And  all  the 
while  his  bitterness  against  Wangen  grew 
steadily,  for  he  put  the  blame  on  him  for  every- 
thing. 


168  JOHAN   BOJER 

There  are  three  feelings,  which,  at  this  stage, 
control  him:  fear  of  scandal,  of  people's  gloating 
laughter,  and  bitterness  against  Wangen.  These 
feelings  are  strong  enough  to  prevent  his  telling 
the  truth.  But  they  are  not  strong  enough  to 
make  him  resolve  to  continue  the  lie.  He  felt 
himself  greatly  to  blame  in  the  matter,  and 
speculated  constantly  on  some  way  out. 

Then  two  new  factors  enter  in. 

First,  Wangen,  embittered  by  the  false  accusa- 
tion, employed  unworthy  means  in  his  defense. 
He  tried  to  injure  Norby  on  other  scores,  spread 
false  reports  about  him,  and  sought  particularly 
to  exhibit  him  as  a  morally  tarnished  person. 
For  this  reason,  naturally,  Norby's  bitterness 
against  him  grew  still  stronger.  Then  another 
thing  resulted.  Norby  no  longer  had  the  feeling 
that  it  was  he  who  was  the  accuser;  he  was  cer- 
tainly  attacked  by  Wangen  and  had  to  put  him- 
self on  the  defensive.  Then  his  conscience  began 
to  feel  good.  The  fact  that  he  was  blameless  in 
twenty  accusations  directed  against  him,  made 
him  practically  forget  that  he  was  guilty  of 
the  one-and-twentieth.  The  wrong  that  was 
practised  against  him  occupied  him  so  much  and 


DELUSIONS  169 

the  thought  of  it  so  filled  his  consciousness  that 
the  thought  of  the  wrong  he  himself  had  done 
shrunk  and  faded  entirely  into  the  background. 

Then  it  came  about  that  he  began  to  be 
afraid.  In  the  beginning  he  felt  himself  su- 
perior, and,  when  he  had  qualms  of  conscience, 
it  was  not  least  because  he  felt  that  it  was  mean 
to  kick  a  man  who  was  down.  But  when  he 
found  that  there  was  someone  who  took 
Wangen's  part,  evil  instincts  began  to  assert 
themselves;  he  suspected  that  his  arch  enemy, 
Herlufsen,  had  a  finger  in  the  pie;  he  thought  he 
perceived  a  plot  against  himself,  and  his  thoughts 
began  to  center  on  how  he  should  clear  himself 
and  show  that  he  was  the  stronger.  Joy  of 
battle  —  the  sporting  fever,  woke  in  him. 

He  was  now  so  far  from  the  real  core  of 
the  matter  that  the  fact  of  his  having  started  a 
false  accusation  against  Wangen  grew  daily 
more  remote.  He  felt  that  he  was  now  fighting 
for  life  and  death,  to  clear  his  honor  and  his 
reputation. 

Like  Regina  in  El  Pilgrims  gang  he  felt  that  the 
means  he  employed  were  necessary  —  and, 
besides,  his  opponent  was  a  poor  fellow  who 


170  JOHAN   BOJER 

didn't  deserve  to  be  fought  against  with  weapons 
that  were  altogether  clean. 

From  here  on  to  the  last  stage  is  not  far.  The 
feeling  of  his  own  wrongdoing  had  already  been 
driven  back  by  the  sense  of  his  opponent's  wrong. 
At  last  it  disappeared  entirely.  Norby  had  so 
often  expessed  his  opinion  about  the  matter 
that  to  remember  his  own  assertions  was  prac- 
tically like  remembering  reality.  Self  sugges- 
tion was  complete,  and  where  he,  at  last,  bore 
false  witness  in  court,  he  was,  in  reality,  acting 
in  good  faith  —  almost  convinced  that  he  had 
never  signed  the  document  in  dispute. 

Meanwhile  a  similar  development  was  taking 
place  in  his  opponent  Wangen. 

The  latter  had,  by  his  rash  speculations,  ruined 
half  the  parish,  and  he  was  well  on  the  way  to 
feeling  pangs  of  remorse  over  it.  He  began  to 
recognize  his  own  inability  and  rashness,  and  to 
understand  that  it  is  not  enough  to  have  warm- 
hearted ideas  when  these  ideas,  as  a  matter  of 
fact,  only  bring  unhappiness  upon  those  whom 
they  should  help. 

But  then  came  Norby's  false  accusation,  and 
this  served,  as  a  fruitful  source  for  his  self  justi- 


DELUSIONS  171 

fication,  which  now  could  grow  great  and  re- 
splendent. It  was  a  relief  for  him  to  be  able 
to  turn  the  accusation  against  someone  beside 
himself,  and  he  felt  his  own  picture  grow 
brighter  against  this  still  darker  background. 
"His  lack  of  guilt  in  this  one  matter  was  like  a 
lamp  which,  suddenly,  was  lighted  in  his  dark- 


ness." 


What  had  happened  was  that  he  had  got  a 
new  pivotal  point  for  his  thoughts  and  feelings. 
Previously,  they  had  concentrated  on  his  own 
guilt;  now,  they  centered,  on  Norby 's.  And  the 
results  became  apparent  rapidly.  Norby's  guilt 
swelled  while  his  own  dwindled.  Since  Norby 
had  been  able  to  commit  that  villainy,  he  would 
certainly  have  been  able  to  perpetrate  this  and 
that.  It  was  obviously  he  —  Norby  —  who  was 
the  cause  of  all  these  pieces  of  ill-luck.  That 
the  brick-yard  project  failed,  that  money  was 
lost,  that  the  laborers  were  ruined  —  all  these 
things,  which  previously  weighed  on  Wangen's 
own  conscience,  he  now  transferred  to  Norby's 
account. 

We  see  that  the  same  thing  had  happened 
to  him  which  happened  to  Norby;  the  wrong 


172  JOHAN    BOJER 

that  was  done  him  took  on,  in  his  consciousness, 
such  mighty  dimensions,  that  the  wrong  he  him- 
self had  committed  dwindled  and  was  sup- 
planted. He  felt  himself  a  persecuted,  innocent 
man,  who  must,  of  necessity,  employ  any  and  all 
means  to  defend  and  clear  himself.  And  that 
ended,  in  his  case  also,  with  his  really  commit- 
ting the  crime  he  was  accused  of:  he  forged  a 
document  and  produced  it  in  court. 


VII 


BOJER'S  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  CHARACTER 

IN  the  year  of  Our  Lord  191 7,  the  analogy 
between  Norby  and  Wangen  and  the  con- 
tending parties  in  the  world-war  is  so  evident 
that  one  can  hardly  escape  it.  And  Bojer's 
psychology  could  not  have  a  greater  triumph 
than  to  get  world  history  as  authorization.  For 
can  one  well  deny,  that  it  is  Norby 's  and 
Wangen 's  psychology  one  meets  again  on  a 
gigantic  scale  in  the  opponents  of  the  war! 
And  here  also  it  is  the  wrong  done  by  the  enemy 
which  gives  power  and  moral  support  in  the 
struggle.  Also  here,  each  crime,  each  outrage 
on  individuals  and  on  mankind  is  defended  as 
necessary  and  as  reprisal!  Yes,  the  crimes  are 
forgotten  and  the  consciences  left  clear.  The 
whole  conscious  life  is  directed  in  accordance 
with  an  absolutely  controlling  central  idea:  that 
they  are  fighting  a  righteous  war.  Only  what 
harmonizes  with  this  gains  admittance  to  con- 

173 


i74  JOHAN   BOJER 

sciousness  —  everything  else  is  disregarded,  or 
colored  and  distorted  until  it  corresponds.  Each 
can  mention  examples;  those  who  have  taken 
part  can,  in  each  case,  find  them  in  their  ad- 
versary. 

Even  the  "neutrals"  we  find  can  in  Troens 
Magt,  particularly  represented  by  Mrs.  Thora  of 
Lidarende,  Pastor  Borring,  and  Mads  Herlufsen. 
But  neither  are  they  in  a  position  to  discover 
the  truth  and  the  right.  They  have  personal 
sympathies,  interests  or  various  prejudices,  that 
limit  and  determine  their  judgments.  Thus  the 
book's  effect  is  of  a  deep  and  bitter  distrust  of 
mankind's  ability  to  distinguish  between  right 
and  wrong,  between  truth  and  lies  —  always 
there  are  extraneous  things  —  moods  of  the 
moment,  personal  feelings,  fear  and  love  — 
which  distort  the  picture  and  falsify  the  results. 
How  can  man  learn  really  to  judge  with  cer- 
tainty? The  boundaries  do  not  remain  fixed, 
the  mind's  firmest  foundations  are  shaken.  But 
is  the  author  wrong?  Is  his  psychology  false? 
The  world  war  has  answered. 

We  saw,  in  the  fairy  tale  about  the  Knight, 
that  the  desire  for  revenge  was  not,  of  itself, 


PSYCHOLOGY  OF  CHARACTER  175 

so  powerful  as  to  determine  his  whole  life.  But 
it  grew,  overspread  the  personal  boundaries,  and 
took  on  an  ideal  character.  There  came  a  time 
when  the  knight  believed  that  it  was  no  longer 
a  personal  hatred  that  made  him  fight  his  enemy, 
but  love  of  unknown  men,  of  truth  and  right, 
and  even,  finally,  of  God. 

And  this  trait  we  can  also  find  in  a  number  of 
Bojer's  characters.  It  comes  out  dimly  in  Saint 
Olaf,  in  the  youthful  drama  of  that  same  name 
and  more  strongly  later  in  Peter  Hegge  in  Et 
Folketog.  His  starting  point  is  something  per- 
sonal; his  unfriendliness  toward  Bergheiman  and 
the  decay  of  his  farm.  But  he  pictures  it  as 
something  universal.  Instead  of  reconciling 
himself  with  his  enemy  he  fights  him  in  the  name 
of  party-idealism,  and  instead  of  cultivating  his 
farm  properly,  he  runs  away  to  fight  for  an 
ideal,  he  dreams  of  accomplishing  state  help 
for  farming. 

And  likewise  with  Samuel  Brandt  in  Den 
Evige  Krig.  With  him,  also,  the  beginning  is 
personal.  He  feels  himself  under  a  vow  to  the 
dead  wife  to  fight  against  his  father,  but  the 
feeling  broadens  out,  "his  fancy  paints  his  father 


i76  JOHAN   BOJER 

as  a  type  of  dishonorableness  and  arrogance;  he 
saw  this  in  large  letters,  and  felt  that  all  such 
aristocratic,  autocratic,  arrogant  conservatives 
were  his  enemies.  His  dead  wife,  himself  and 
all  unhappy  people  must  have  redress."  All  un- 
happy people  —  yes,  that  is  the  ideal  that  drives 
him  into  the  maelstrom  of  political  strife. 

This  is  true  of  Regina  in  En  Pilgrimsgang;  her 
search  for  the  child  takes  on  an  ideal  character. 
Is  not  the  mother  feeling  holy?  Is  it  not  un- 
natural for  a  mother  to  forget  her  child?  Is  it 
not  a  holy  privilege,  yes,  a  duty,  for  her  to  stake 
everything  on  finding  him? 

And  when  Norby  fights  with  Wangen,  is  it 
merely  to  get  himself  out  of  the  scrape?  Oh,  no, 
it  is  in  order  that  lying  and  swindling  may  be 
exposed  and  struck  at  so  that  right  may  tri- 
umph. And,  with  Wangen,  it  is  even  easier. 
This  is  certainly  his  idea  in  the  matter  of  the 
eight-hour  working  day,  in  his  attempt  to  help 
the  laborer;  this  is  the  cause  of  his  martyrdom. 
His  enemies  want  to  get  a  handle  against  him 
because  of  this,  and  this  it  is  he  fights  for.  The 
whole  thing  is  a  social  problem,  and  when  he  uses 
trashy  means  to  clear  himself  yet  there  is  always 


PSYCHOLOGY  OF  CHARACTER  177 

the  comfort  that  he  is  not  fighting  only  for  him- 
self but  for  "all  unfortunates." 

In  Vort  Rige,  the  next  novel  that  Johan 
Bojer  wrote,  after  Troens  Magt,  this  instinct  of 
the  mind  to  create  for  itself  an  ideal  in  which 
to  take  refuge,  becomes  the  central  idea. 

Erik  Evige  is,  like  numbers  of  his  predecessors 
in  Bojer's  productions,  perpetrating  a  swindle 
with  idealistic  intent.  He  acted  in  good 
faith,  although  he  sometimes  became  fearful  of 
building  on  a  delusion.  He  suffered  from  a  sick 
conscience  and  searched  after  ideals  "as  those 
who  are  sorely  wounded  desire  water."  A  girl, 
whom  he  had  deceived,  later  bore  a  child  whom 
she  killed.  A  friend,  he  had  neglected  to  help, 
forged  a  note.  This  was  the  starting  point.  These 
two  incidents  did  not  give  him  any  peace,  and  in 
order  to  get  relief,  he  became  first  a  clergyman, 
then  a  doctor,  and  then  a  labor  leader.  Some- 
times these  things  helped,  but,  at  other  times, 
his  conscience  would  not  be  quiet  and  he  took 
to  drink  in  order  to  gain  forgetfulness. 

At  last  he  went  home  to  his  father's  farm, 
and  here  he  succeeded  at  last  in  finding  peace 
and  a  basis  for  belief  in  himself.     He  put  into 


178  JOHAN   BOJER 

operation  an  idea  he  had  long  had  in  mind  —  to 
wit,  giving  the  uncultivated  portions  of  the  farm 
to  various  poor  men  who  thereby  could  get  the 
opportunity  to  be  independent  and  set  up  a 
home.  The  waste  portions  are  reclaimed,  one 
little  home  after  another  rose,  and  the  happiness 
Erik  Evige  created  here  became  like  a  holy 
place  into  which  he  could  enter  and  find  comfort. 
His  trips  of  a  Sunday  to  Nyland  were  like  a  sort 
of  church  going  for  him,  and  every  time  he  had 
done  something  wrong,  or  the  wound  in  his  con- 
science began  to  give  him  a  twinge,  he  found 
comfort  in  thinking  what  he  had  done  at  home. 

But  it  so  happens  fate  had  decreed  there 
should  be  quicksand  in  the  ground  where  the 
new  houses  were  built,  and  the  state  engineer, 
Rein,  came  and  told  Erik  Evige  that  it  was  un- 
forgivable for  him  to  let  men  build  there ;  a  land 
slide  might  come  and  carry  the  whole  place 
away  with  it. 

This  was  a  grat  catastrophe  for  Erik  Evige. 
Must  he  again  become  a  spiritual  outcast? 
These  new  homes  —  they  were  practically  his  re- 
ligion, the  sunshine  of  his  life,  that  which  made 
him  believe  life  was  worth  living.     If  he  must 


PSYCHOLOGY  OF  CHARACTER  179 

lose  these,  what  was  life?  He  would  not  believe 
the  news,  clung  to  the  hope  that  it  was  impos- 
sible. "Do  you  mean,  then,"  he  asked  the  en- 
gineer, "that  even  when  an  ideal  helps  us  to  be 
better,  lifts  us  up  from  misery,  and  makes  us 
stronger  and  somewhat  more  worthy  men  again, 
it  can  be,  none  the  less,  all  humbug?  And  Na- 
ture doesn't  care  a  hang  that  we  are  putting  our 
whole  selves  into  making  right  again  the  wrong 
we  have  done.  That  sorrows  are  ended,  tears 
are  dried,  that  the  poor  have  a  roof  and  bread 
to  eat,  and  that  a  great  idea  is  put  into  force 
that  will  have  increasing  results  for  centuries  and 
millions  of  men  —  all  these  things  Nature  will 
let  die  and  go  to  the  devil?" 

But  it  happened  just  as  the  engineer  had  pre- 
dicted. The  powers  of  Nature  are  blind,  the 
quicksand  takes  no  account  of  Erik  Evige's  fine 
intentions,  and  the  land  slide  carried  everything 
away,  houses  and  men,  in  its  course. 

The  engineer  is  the  fault  finder  of  the  book 
and  it  is  in  him  we  meet  the  book's  thought  in 
its  clearest  expression.  He  stands  once  before 
the  slide  takes  place  and  looks  over  the  new 
land  with  its  five  small  farms  that  Erik  had,  in 


180  JOHAN   BOJER 

defiance  of  chance,  succeeded  in  making  habit- 
able. And  he  thinks  as  he  looks  at  them:  "And 
these  men  believe  that  it  is  for  themselves  they 
are  striving.  But,  in  reality,  it  is  also  so  that 
Erik  Evige  may  develop  his  ideal.  That's  what 
it  is.  He  has  planted  them  there  as  others  plant 
pine  trees  for  a  protection  against  the  north 
wind.  His  father  used  men  without  pity  in  or- 
der to  lay  by  something  for  his  purse;  Erik 
Evige  did  likewise  for  his  conscience.  The 
egoism  of  the  one  is  equally  as  brutal  as  that  of 
the  other." 

Then  Erik  fell  to  thinking  about  a  clergy- 
man who  had  become  a  fanatical  political  agita- 
tor, because  he,  in  his  time,  had  hurled  dialectics 
at  his  poor  mother.  Now  she  was  dead.  But 
now  he  wanted  to  atone,  and  for  this  purpose 
all  Norwegians  would  please  lend  themselves. 

And  he  remembered  a  friend,  who  had  lost 
his  wife  in  a  fire.  In  despair  he  became  a  mis- 
sionary and  traveled,  finally,  along  the  country 
roads  with  a  singing  and  weeping  mob  after  him. 
It  gave  him  comfort  to  spread  his  own  funereal 
state  of  mind  over  old  and  young,  and  when  he 
succeeded  in  reducing  newly  married  people's 


PSYCHOLOGY  OF  CHARACTER  181 

happiness  to  the  same  despair  which  he  himself 
felt,  then  he  lifted  his  eyes  to  heaven  and  felt 
himself  in  league  with  God. 

And  the  engineer  asked  himself:  "How  many 
men's  souls  have  prophets  and  popular  leaders 
crucified  on  similar  grounds?" 

In  Troens  Magt  and  Vort  Rige  we  see  the 
culmination  of  this  scepticism  and  pessimism, 
which  stamp  Bojer's  writings  even  up  till  the 
present  time.  The  feeling  about  fundamental 
evil,  both  in  the  individual  life  and  in  society, 
is  single-minded  and  consistent.  When  men  do 
evil,  then  both  they  and  others  will  go  under 
because  of  it,  even  if  they  did  not  do  it  for  its 
own  sake.  They  do  not  do  it  merely  because 
of  pure  egoism,  conscious  that  it  is  evil.  No, 
they  do  it  with  good  intention,  and  they  do  it 
in  the  name  of  an  ideal.  The  motive  is  egoistic; 
a  little  private  feud,  a  gnawing  wrong,  a  secret 
irritation,  a  sick  spot  in  their  conscience.  But 
men  are  unaware  of  the  egoism,  for  in  good  faith, 
they  shift  far  from  themselves  the  defense  of 
their  acts,  and  put  it  upon  society  as  a  whole, 
or  upon  an  idea. 

Here  we  face  a  feeling  that  has  deep  root  in 


1 82  JOHAN   BOJER 

the  mind  of  this  age,  but  which,  at  the  same 
time,  seems  behind  the  age.  The  barefaced  in- 
dividualistic egoism,  which,  in  the  nineteenth 
century,  was  cultivated  in  the  name  of  freedom, 
and,  to  so  great  a  degree,  set  its  mark  on  the 
spiritual  life,  has  practically  played  out  its  role 
as  a  leading  idea  in  the  twentieth  century.  It 
is  now  collectivism,  organization,  cooperation, 
which  is  apparently  to  become  this  age's  motto. 

But  the  change  is  not  without  danger.  It 
can  happen  with  many,  as  with  the  knights  in  the 
fairy  tale,  that  they  begin  to  love  unknown  men 
or  fight  for  the  faith  of  one  or  other  little 
personal  cause.  If  one  does  not  think  only  of 
political  and  religious  movements,  but  of  all  the 
"questions"  that  assail  modern  society;  prohibi- 
tion, the  woman  question,  defense  measures,  and 
so  forth,  is  one  not  inclined  to  share  Bojer's 
view?  Are  not  these  "ideals,"  I  wonder,  often 
nothing  more  than  havens  one  takes  refuge  in 
for  fear  of  being  alone,  and  "the  Gods,"  only 
what  one  creates  for  himself  out  of  his  mind's 
need?  This  egoism,  this  cavilling,  this  uncon- 
cern for  others,  which  no  longer  dare  to  show 
themselves  openly,  these  can  thrive  vigorously 


PSYCHOLOGY  OF  CHARACTER  183 

when  they  are  indulged  in  for  "the  service  of  a 
good  cause"  and  this  is  so  much  the  more  danger- 
ous, as  it  is  so  much  more  difficult  to  get  a 
handle  on  anything  when  a  moral  defense  is 
urged.  Is  it  then  without  justification  for 
Bojer  to  assert  that  it  is  not  ideals  but  results 
on  which  everything  depends.  No  great  phrase 
or  fine  sentiment,  no  noble  interest  or  ideal 
basis  for  feeling  can  stop  a  landslide  or  heal  the 
wounds  of  battle. 

These  books  were  written  before  the  world's 
war.  But  can  one  not  see  that  they  had  their 
origin  in  an  age  which  ended  with  the  great 
catastrophe,  in  which  people's  concern  was  for 
small  nations  and  great  abstract  ideas,  because 
one  wanted  to  get  a  handle  on  his  enemy,  in 
which  millions  of  men  in  the  name  of  patriotism 
under  cover  of  national  devotion  gave  way  to 
hate  and  cruelty  and  declared  every  crime  per- 
missible if  it  served  the  "holy  cause."  The 
knight  stormed  through  the  world  laying  it  waste 
—  quite  convinced  of  being  God's  chosen  war- 
rior. But  the  spirit,  the  good  fairy,  the  land 
of  youth  and  beauty,  must  nevertheless  wait  till 
it  is  too  late. 


184  JOHAN   BOJER 

When  Knut  Norby,  after  the  suit  against 
Wangen,  received  enthusiastic  homage  from  the 
whole  parish  with  speeches  and  music,  his  son 
Einar  said  —  knowing  the  whole  situation,  and 
doing  his  own  thinking: 

"It  is  then  true,  that  men's  holiest  feelings  and 
ideals  are  so  completely  blind,  as  to  lend  them- 
selves to  support  a  crime,  a  gross  lie!  .  .  .  Can 
this  be  so?  .  .  . 

"Is  there  no  guarantee  in  the  fact  that  men's 
words  glow  with  the  warmth  of  their  hearts,  that 
their  eyes  are  wet  and  their  voices  tremble  with 
emotion?     Can  this  be? 

"Is  there  then  no  single  means  of  certainty 
that  men  are  sincere?  For  the  fact  remains  the 
fact  —  if  we  deck  the  criminals  with  garlands 
and  send  the  innocent  to  prison,  then  good  faith 
will  be  the  thing  of  all  things  most  dreaded. 
Because  a  man  has  fallen  into  his  evil  way 
with  divinely  good  intentions,  must  everybody 
do  him  honor  wherever  he  comes?  Is  this 
right?  .  .  . 

"And  all  those  powers  —  God,  the  'father- 
land,' love  of  mankind,  Christianity  —  shall  all 
these  let  themselves  be  used  like  borrowed 


PSYCHOLOGY  OF  CHARACTER  185 

clothes,  be  willing  to  palliate  the  crime  and  evil, 
to  honor  the  lie?  .    .    . 

"Is  this  the  way  of  the  world?" 

Let  those  who  have  lived  through  the  last  three 
years  answer. 


VIII 

LITERARY   QUALITIES 
OF   BOJER'S   WORK 

THE  three  novels  just  discussed  brought 
Bojer  European  fame.  They  were  all 
translated  into  French,  German,  English,  Rus- 
sian, Dutch,  Italian  and  Spanish,  and  particu- 
larly Troens  Magt  ran  to  several  editions  and 
drew  an  unusual  amount  of  attention.  The 
critics,  especially  the  French  and  Italians,  de- 
voted themselves  absorbedly  to  his  writings,  and 
Troens  Magt  received  an  honor  that  is  seldom 
conferred  on  any  but  French  books,  that  is,  it 
was  crowned  by  the  French  Academy. 

What  qualities  are  they  that  have  brought 
these  novels  success?  Especially  two  things: 
their  absolute  originality,  really  amazing  orig- 
inality of  ideas,  and  the  unique  clearness  of  the 
reasoning  in  the  development.  One  must,  how- 
ever, remark  in  this  connection,  that  Bojer,  in 
no  wise,  stands  alone  in  the  matter  of  his  doubt 

J$6 


LITERARY   QUALITIES  187 

about  human  reason's  reliability,  and  modern 
psychological  researches,  to  a  very  great  degree, 
have  occupied  themselves  with  the  idea  of  the 
central  concept  and  auto-suggestion.  And 
one  must  admit,  that  various  writers,  for  ex- 
ample, the  great  Russians,  and  many  of  the 
French,  have  portrayed  psychological  develop- 
ment of  a  similar  sort  to  that  which  we  find  in 
Bojer.  But  this  does  not  detract  in  any  re- 
spect from  his  originality.  His  scepticism  comes 
from  personal  and  artistic  experiences,  and  his 
ability  to  enter  into  the  soul  life's  most  secret 
labyrinths  and  paint  what  he  finds  there,  com- 
pares especially  well  with  the  work  of  those  au- 
thors who  must  have  influenced  him;  there  is 
not  sharper  analysis  or  clearer  form  in  Dostoev- 
sky's  description  of  Raskolnikov's  reflections  be- 
fore and  after  the  murder,  or  in  Hugo's  narration 
of  Pere  Madeleine's  and  Javert's  soul  battle. 

All  three  novels  are  brilliant  in  construction, 
but  obviously  constructed.  We  saw  already  in 
the  first  group  of  Bojer's  writings,  that  the  start- 
ing point  was  the  idea.  And  it  is  so  here  also. 
When  one,  after  reading,  thinks  over  these 
novels,  one  does  not  get  the  illusion  of  some- 


188  JOHAN   BOJER 

thing  living;  they  do  not  appear  as  slices  of  life 
and  reality,  but  as  the  offspring  of  fancy,  or 
rather,  of  speculation  —  like  something  that  is 
invented  in  order  to  make  clear  and  illustrate  the 
author's  idea. 

One  of  Bojer's  French  critics  has,  quite  wit- 
tily, compared  Troens  Magt  to  a  play  by  Scribe, 
or  a  novel  by  Sherlock  Holmes.  The  intellec- 
tual suspense  is  the  same,  and  the  degree  of 
dependence  on  the  denouement  also.  But,  in 
the  one  case,  the  point  is  that  the  hero  shall  con- 
quer the  difficulties,  which  are  piled  up.  Every 
way  out  seems  closed,  and  the  suspense  grows  — 
but,  in  his  innermost  heart,  one  is  convinced 
that  it  certainly  will  be  arranged  so  that  he  can 
escape.  With  Bojer,  on  the  contrary,  the  point 
is  that  "the  hero"  shall  be  caught  in  self-de- 
ception; he  gets  one  chance  after  the  other  to 
get  free,  and  the  suspense  grows  as  to  whether 
he  will  not  discover  it  and  go  free;  but,  in  his 
innermost  self,  one  knows  that  the  author  will 
arrange  it  so  that  he  is  caught  securely  in  the 
net  at  the  last. 

But  it  must,  in  all  honesty,  be  admitted  that 
the  idea  of  the  action  all  being  designed  does  not 


LITERARY   QUALITIES  189 

present  itself  until  after  reading.  During  the 
reading,  the  author  has  one  in  his  power,  and 
there  is  no  single  point  where  one  can  point 
his  ringer  and  say:  "here  we  are  wide  of  prob- 
ability." 

The  least  noteworthy  of  the  three*  books  is 
probably  En  Pilgrimsgang.  It  begins,  to  be  sure, 
excellently.  The  picture  of  the  lying-in  hos- 
pital, the  interior  as  a  whole,  and  the  various  un- 
fortunate mothers,  is  living  and  gripping,  and 
gives  a  remarkable  background  for  Regina's  fate- 
ful decision  to  give  up  claim  to  the  child.  Re- 
gina,  herself,  is  also,  in  the  beginning,  living 
and  individual,  but,  afterwards,  as  the  possibil- 
ities flicker  out  and  the  longing  for  the  child, 
more  and  more,  sweeps  over  her  soul,  the  sharp- 
cut  impression  fades,  and  her  character  is  only 
like  a  shell  about  the  mighty  passion  that  rages 
within  her.  As  long  as  mother-love  still  is  fight- 
ing to  conquer  other  interests,  so  long  is  Bojer 
master  of  his  material.  But  when,  at  last,  this 
primitive,  elemental  feeling  has  conquered  and 
become  absolute,  it  gets  beyond  him.  Nothing 
is  more  difficult  than  to  paint  primitive  passion, 
which  is  forced  to  the  point  of  ecstasy,  and  Bojer 


190  JOHAN   BOJER 

has  not  succeeded  in  doing  this  well  enough  to 
carry  the  reader  away.  He  gives  the  effect 
of  the  unrest,  the  eternal  searcher's  hunt  from 
place  to  place  —  this  is  described  and  summed 
up  in  a  symbol;  we  see  the  unfortunate  woman 
jump  up  from  her  sleep  in  order  to  follow  a  new 
clue,  and  we  hear  the  rattle  of  a  cab  in  the 
night.  But  we  do  not  live  through  and  with 
her;  we  are  not  one  with  the  passion  that  drives 
her  forth.  Bojer's  style,  which  is  so  clear  when 
it  is  a  matter  of  analyzing,  so  sure  when  it  con- 
cerns recording  observations,  and  so  artistic  in 
expressing  moods  and  feelings,  has  not  strength 
enough,  is  not  sufficiently  kindled  by  personal 
suffering,  to  interpret  a  mother's  primitive  pas- 
sion and  despair. 

In  Troens  Magt,  Bojer's  ability  for  penetrat- 
ing psychological  analysis  achieves  probably  its 
greatest  triumph.  The  searching  investigation 
of  what  goes  on  in  the  mind  before  the  material 
expression  of  a  thought  or  feeling  we  found  al- 
ready clearly  in  Den  Evige  Krig  —  as  in  the 
great  settlement  between  Samuel  and  Carsten 
—  and  to  a  greater  degree,  both  in  the  descrip- 
tion of  Hans  Lunde  in  Moder  Lea,  and  of  Regina 


LITERARY   QUALITIES  191 

in  En  Pilgritnsgang.  But  in  no  place  does 
Bojer  go  so  deep  in  his  portrayal  of  the  secret 
processes  of  the  consciousness,  and  nowhere  are 
the  results  he  drags  forth  to  the  light  so  amazing, 
and,  at  the  same  time,  so  embarassingly  difficult 
to  deny. 

Troens  Magt  has  the  effect,  certainly,  seen 
from  a  distance,  of  a  piece  of  architecture,  but 
this  is  not  because  the  individual  characters  do 
not  have  life.  The  book  is,  in  reality,  full  of  life 
and  perspicuity. 

From  the  old  cottager  who  lies  dying,  and  only 
needs  to  look  at  his  wife  for  her  to  understand 
that  he  wants  her  to  put  his  quid  back  in  his 
mouth  after  he  has  received  the  sacrament,  to 
Norby  and  Wangen,  the  characters  are  quite  con- 
crete. Wangen's  attitude  towards  his  wife  is 
filled  out  by  a  number  of  small  affecting  touches, 
which  perhaps,  more  than  anything  else,  con- 
tribute to  making  him  seem  human.  And 
Norby  stands,  in  his  great  self-assurance,  in  his 
ambitious  enterprisingness,  in  his  goodness 
towards  those  subordinate  to  him,  his  weakness 
towards  his  wife,  and  his  somewhat  awkward 
tenderness  towards  his  daughter  Laura,  like  a 


i92  JOHAN   BOJER 

fully  living  character,  presented  from  every 
point  of  view. 

It  is  not  because  Norby's  and  Wangen's 
development  respectively  is  not  convincing. 
Wangen  is,  at  every  point,  completely  credible. 
Nor  indeed  can  there  be  any  objection  made  to 
Norby's  psychology;  not  even  the  ineffectual 
interference  of  the  son  Einar  can  really  be  con- 
sidered improbable. 

No,  that  which  gives  the  book  the  effect  of 
being  artificial  is  that  everything  serves  to 
emphasize  its  central  idea.  Norby  deceives 
himself,  Mrs.  Fhora,  and  Pastor  Borring,  and 
the  whole  parish  judge  subjectively  and  pre- 
posterously; and,  at  last,  they  give  a  banquet 
for  Norby  —  for  the  criminal,  and  are  ceremo- 
nious, affected  to  tears,  and  enthusiastic  in  his 
honor.  Why?  In  order  that  the  book's  per- 
spective may  be  the  widest  possible.  There  is 
no  righteous  man  in  Israel.  They  are  all  of  a 
piece  in  being  convinced  that  they  stand  on  the 
side  of  truth  and  righteousness,  and  the  whole 
group  vies  with  each  other  in  getting  entrapped 
by  lies  and  deception. 

This  it  is,  that  gives  the  book  its  effect  of 


LITERARY   QUALITIES  193 

unreality.  But  it  is,  perhaps  at  the  same  time, 
its  strength.  It  is,  by  this  means,  that  it  be- 
comes so  forcible.  Just  precisely  its  wide  per- 
spective makes  it  seem  so  bold,  so  embarrass- 
ingly personal;  "Gentle  reader,  how  is  it  with 
you  and  your  power  to  judge?  Would  it  be 
more  reliable  than  these  men's  judgment?  "  The 
question  seems  disagreeable,  and  when  one  re- 
joices in  being  able  to  call  the  book  "made-to- 
order,"  and  anxiously  looks  for  improbabilities  to 
make  much  of  —  isn't  it  so  that  one  may  shake 
free  of  the  question,  and  defend  one's  personal 
judgment  against  the  indiscreet  doubt? 

Troens  Magt  is  certainly  strong  but  it  is  also 
a  cold  book;  it  dazzles  more  than  it  seizes. 
There  is  a  something,  certainly,  of  scientific 
sobriety  in  it;  one  is  interested  in  the  ideas;  one 
is  disturbed  perhaps  by  them;  but  one  does  not 
feel  with  the  characters;  one  has  no  sympathy 
with  them.  Quite  otherwise  in  Vort  Rige.  Erik 
Evje  is  not  merely  split  open  and  displayed  like 
Norby  and  Wangen.  The  author  has  entered 
into  his  life  and  felt  with  him,  and,  therefore, 
he  is  a  really  tragic  figure. 

In  1902  Bojer  published  a  novel  and  a  play. 


194  JOHAN   BOJER 

In  1903  came  Troens  Magt,  and,  in  1904,  a 
collection  of  fairy  tales,  and  a  play.  Then  four 
years  elapsed  before  Vort  Rige  was  finished.  To 
be  sure,  during  these  four  years,  Bojer  was  hin- 
dered by  sickness,  but  it  is  hardly  mere  chance 
that  it  was  precisely  this  book  that  took  him  so 
long  to  write.  Its  scepticism  is  more  bitter,  its 
smart  deeper  —  all  its  tone  more  personal  than 
any  of  the  earlier  books.  One  could  imagine 
that  the  author  had  felt  the  same  hurt  in  de- 
scribing Erik  Evje,  as  that  which  the  state  en- 
gineer had  felt  at  needing  to  smash  Erik's  ideal. 
"It  happens,  now,  that  a  man  shows  a  little 
ideality  on  account  of  a  one-time  fault.  He 
doesn't  merely  preachify  about  the  poor  —  he 
does  something  real,  which  helps.  He  brings  the 
matter  before  all  eyes,  and  acts  as  a  leader  him- 
self. In  this  man's  mind  there  is  nothing  so 
great  and  beautiful  done  here  in  the  country 
side.  But  then,  you,  Ingvald,  step  forward  and 
kick  the  whole  thing  over." 

It  is  the  engineer's  wife  who  is  speaking,  and 
the  words  sting.  It  is  not  delightful  to  go 
about  pointing  out  the  heartless  blindness  of 
nature's   laws,   and   breaking  into   little   bits 


LITERARY   QUALITIES  195 

other  people's  beautiful  illusions  and  precious 
ideals.  The  heart-sick  feeling  that  fills  the 
book's  critical  character  is  not  the  least  gripping 
thing  in  it. 

Vort  Rige  also  has  a  wide  perspective.  It  is 
said  explicitly  of  Erik  Evje,  that  he  reminds  one 
of  "great  spiritual  leaders,  who  use  men  in  the 
same  way."  And  the  small  homes,  which  Erik 
Evje  plants  as  a  balm  for  his  conscience,  "as 
others  plant  pine  trees  for  protection  from  the 
north  wind,"  are  felt  as  a  symbol,  not  only  of 
this  single  man's  ideal,  but  of  ideals  in  general. 
But,  despite  the  symbol,  Vort  Rige  is  an  abso- 
lutely realistic  novel.  Erik  Evje,  and  his  spir- 
itual exile,  is  not  only  an  illustration,  but  has 
value  and  meaning  in  itself.  And  the  book 
contains,  in  several  subordinate  characters, 
pretty  nearly  the  finest  detail  work  Bojer  has 
achieved;  there  is  both  Lars  Broen,  who  is 
foolish  enough  to  marry  the  wrong  person,  and 
there  is,  particularly,  the  middle-aged  fellow, 
who,  after  the  lapse  of  many  years,  finally  was  in 
a  position  where  he  could  bring  home  the  fiancee 
of  his  youth  —  thereby  causing  great  disenchant- 
ment for  them  both,  until  at  last  death  separated 


196  JOHAN   BOJER 

them.  The  last  scene  is  unforgetable.  The 
land  slide  had  overturned  the  house,  and  they 
are  sitting  up  on  the  top  to  escape  the  water 
which  is  streaming  in,  but  knowing  that  it  is 
only  a  matter  of  a  few  moments  before  it  will 
reach  them.  Then  awakes  all  the  young  love  in 
the  old  peevish  wife.  Her  husband  must  strike 
a  match  so  that  she  can  see  his  face  once  more, 
and  for  the  first  time  she  discovers  how  old  it 
has  grown.  Is  it  perhaps  her  fault?  The 
match  goes  out,  and  the  water  rises  steadily. 
But,  suddenly,  she  thinks  of  all  the  times  she 
has  turned  on  him  an  angry,  unloving  face  — 
perhaps  every  single  day  since  they  came  to- 
gether. If  she  could  live  it  over  again,  or  even 
once  smile  at  him  —  as  she  now  felt  she  ought 
always  to  have  done. 

"Bertil  —  haven't  you  another  match?" 
Yes,  he  had  still  one,  and  he  finds  a  dry  place 
to  strike  it,  and,  in  the  glare  of  it,  while  the 
water  draws  nearer  to  them,  he  sees  her  smiling 
more  sweetly,  more  lovingly,  than  he  had  ever 
seen  her  before  —  it  was  at  last  the  real  Inge- 
borg.  The  match  goes  out,  and  she  throws  her 
work-worn  arms  around  his  neck.    "Oh  Bertil, 


LITERARY   QUALITIES  197 

Bertil  —  I  —  I    have    been    so    happy    with 
you.  ..." 

Everything  is  accomplished  by  small  plain  de- 
tails, but  the  whole  scene  is  infinitely  fine  and 
moving,  a  ravishing  little  gem,  which  only  a 
poet  could  create. 


IX 

LIGHT   AND   SHADOW  — JOY 
AND   SORROW 

IN  the  same  epoch  with  these  three  novels 
Bojer  published  two  plays,  Theodora  (1902) 
and  Brutus  (1904),  besides  a  collection  of  fairy 
tales,  Hvide  Fugle  (White  Birds,  1904). 

Both  plays  treat  the  same  theme  as  the  novels, 
and  are  closely  related  to  them.  That  which 
brings  unhappiness  on  Regina,  and  Norby,  and 
Wangen,  and  Erik  Evje,  is  certainly  their  emo- 
tional nature;  it  is  the  blind  passions,  the  mighty 
feelings,  pride  and  compassion,  anxiety  and 
hope,  love  and  hate,  which  overpower  the  clear 
judgment,  and  lead  the  reasoning  power  astray. 
In  Theodora  and  Brutus  we  see  two  people  who 
revolt  against  the  tyranny  of  the  passions,  who 
want  to  be  masters  of  their  own  lives  and  not 
let  themselves  be  tossed  about  on  the  waves  of 
passion. 

Theodora  is  full  of  "a  consuming  passion  for 

that  which  is  white  as  snow,  and  high  as  heaven, 

198 


LIGHT   AND   SHADOW  199 

and  true  as  God  himself."  And  she  seeks  it 
in  the  line  of  pure  reasoning;  mathematics  is 
her  heaven;  "Where  there  is  neither  anger  nor 
doubt,  sin  nor  sickness,  everything  is  high  truth 
and  glowing  clearness  that  broods  over  our  blind 
passionate  lives  like  a  starry  heaven  over  an 
evil  earth."  But,  in  order  to  reach  to  these 
heights  of  pure  reason,  she  has  to  fight  her 
feelings.  Theodora  will  not  let  herself  drift; 
she  will  select  and  choose  among  the  powers 
within  her,  and,  therefore,  she  is  an  enemy  to 
the  heart,  which  "always  lies  in  wait  to  strike 
our  reasoning  in  the  back." 

So  she  sacrifices  her  filial  feeling  for  her  old 
father  and  her  love  for  the  man  she  desires. 
Only  one  feeling  she  will  not  sacrifice:  she  wants 
to  be  a  mother;  she  will  have  a  child  to  live 
for  besides  her  mathematics.  But  this  weak- 
ness has  its  revenge  on  her.  She  cannot  manage 
to  divide  herself  between  the  two  "children," 
the  child  in  the  cradle,  and  her  spiritual  foster 
child,  mathematical  disputation.  The  child 
dies,  and  she  is  tormented  with  the  fear  that 
she  has  neglected  it.  The  passions  which  she 
has  so  long  striven  to  exclude  from  her  life, 


200  JOHAN   BOJER 

stream  in  upon  her  now,  and  overwhelm  her. 
The  conflict  in  her  between  the  body,  which  she 
can  not  escape,  and  the  clear  pure  heaven  of 
thought,  which  she  does  not  want  to  let  go  of, 
becomes  so  strong  that  she  is  broken.  The 
manuscript  is  thrown  into  the  fire,  and,  like 
so  many  other  "problematic  natures,"  she  ends 
by  killing  herself.  Is  it  because  she  is  a 
woman  that  she  does  not  succeed  in  shaping  her 
own  career  as  she  wishes,  and,  in  the  light  of 
clear  thought,  becoming  master  of  her  own  life? 

It  would  seem  so,  because,  in  Brutus,  we  see 
a  man  fighting  the  same  fight,  and  he  wins. 

Brutus  strives  like  Theodora  with  the  dark 
powers  which  bedim  the  clearness  of  one's 
thought  and  weaken  one's  will.  He  feels  it 
harder  to  hold  in  check  the  legions  in  his  own 
soul  than  to  discipline  an  army.  But  he  fights 
to  accomplish  his  aim,  and  becomes  stronger  than 
his  own  hate  and  his  love,  and  never  lets  him- 
self be  moved  from  that  which  his  clear  brain 
tells  him  is  right.  Only  thus  is  he  able  to  be 
strong  enough  to  carry  out  his  great  task;  to 
"create  a  Rome,  where  every  man  wears  a  stain- 
less toga." 


LIGHT   AND    SHADOW  201 

There  is  a  remarkable  little  scene,  where  the 
problem  is  clearly  presented.  It  is  Brutus  and 
his  wife  Virgilia  who  talk  to  one  another: 

Brutus  :  Of  that  time  when  I  had  to  inquire 
into  myself  so  closely  in  order  to  be  able  to 
answer  the  claims  brought  to  my  notice,  I  have 
a  bitter  recollection  of  a  weakness  that  cost 
Rome  dear. 

Virgilia:     Was  it  long  ago? 

Brutus:  The  first  time  we  fought  the  Car- 
nerienses,  they  brought  a  young  leader  of  their 
soldiers  as  captive  to  my  tent:  I  sentenced  him 
to  death. 

Virgilia:     Was  he  very  young? 

Brutus:  It  was  a  glorious  day  in  spring 
time.  The  plains  of  Arsia  were  red  and  white 
with  flowers,  and  the  young  chieftain  —  his  eyes 
were  like  a  fiery  stallion  —  fell  on  his  knees  and 
begged  me  to  spare  his  life. 

Virgilia  :     Was  he  perhaps  twenty  years  old  ? 

Brutus:  His  mother  was  led  also  and  knelt 
beside  him. 

Virgilia:     And  you  —  what  did  you  do? 

Brutus:  His  young  wife  came  finally,  and 
she  had  a  child  in  her  arms. 


202  JOHAN   BOJER 

Virgilia:  And  she  looked  at  you,  and  knelt 
also? 

Brutus:  The  hardest  thing  was  that  she 
resembled  you.  It  was  just  after  you  had  borne 
our  son,  Titus.  And  the  little  baby  was  not 
afraid  of  me,  but  stretched  both  its  hands  out 
to  me. 

Virgilia:  Brutus  —  tell  me  —  what  did 
you  do? 

Brutus:  In  a  word,  I  took  them  into  my 
tent,  gave  them  to  eat  and  drink,  and  let  them  go. 

Virgilia:     [In  an  outburst]     Brutus! 

Brutus:  But  the  same  young  man  gathered 
a  new  army  against  Rome,  and  that  one  head 
which  I  had  spared  cost  Rome  two  thousand. 

Virgilia:     In  the  name  of  the  Gods! 

Brutus:  Tell  me,  Virgilia  —  was  I  good 
that  time? 

Virgilia  :     Yes  —  yes ! 

Brutus:  No,  that  time  I  was  evil.  The 
good  act  is  known  by  the  good  consequences. 
To  be  good  is  often  only  the  avoiding  of  the  pain 
of  being  right.  But  that  is  to  be  nothing  but 
the  slave  of  tyranny  in  one's  own  breast.  Next 
time  I  will  be  a  free  man. 


LIGHT   AND    SHADOW  203 

Virgilia:     I  see  why  men  call  you  cruel. 

Brutus:  You  ought  to  remember  how  much 
easier  it  is  to  be  gentle. 

But  Brutus  conquers  his  natural  mildness. 
And,  when  he  is  put  to  the  great  test,  he  shows 
himself  greater  than  his  fate,  and  sentences  his 
own  son  to  death  for  the  sake  of  the  right. 

Is  Brutus  really  the  solution  of  the  problem 
which  is  propounded  in  the  novel?  Is  it  this 
rigorous  idealism,  akin  to  Brand's,  which  he  sets 
up  as  the  standard?  It  is  demanded  that  the 
will,  building  on  pure  reason,  shall  be  in  abso- 
lute control,  and  that  the  heart-life,  with  feel- 
ings and  moods,  shall  be  shut  out,  because  it 
can  lead  one  astray,  and  create  unhappiness  on 
this  earth.  One  remembers  Olaf,  the  engineer 
among  Mother  Lea's  sons,  who  prized  machines 
because  their  essence  was  clearness,  and  because 
they  never  could  go  astray,  never  lie,  never  be 
muddled.  "There's  a  whole  religion  in  that," 
said  Olaf.  Is  this  the  truth  as  Bojer  has  dis- 
covered it  in  his  life?  Are  we  to  become  like 
the  "honest,"  "clear"  feelingless  machines? 
As  the  problem  is  propounded  in  the  novels,  it 
seems  difficult  to  arrive  at  any  other  conclusion. 


204  JOHAN   BOJER 

And  isn't  this  what  one  has  to  gather  when  the 
engineer,  Rein,  in  Vort  Rige  is  soul-sick  over  the 
necessity  of  shattering  ideals,  for  the  truth's 
sake? 

One  must,  however,  be  chary  of  holding  to 
this  conclusion  too  fixedly  —  among  other  things, 
because  this  would  make  the  warm,  strong  op- 
timism of  Bojer's  latest  works,  Sigurd  Braa  and 
Den  Store  Hunger,  an  entire  mystery.  Brutus 
is,  however,  not  anything  of  a  problem  novel  but 
a  tragedy.  The  difference  between  Theodora, 
who  does  not  succeed  in  conquering  her  personal 
feelings,  and  Brutus,  who  does,  is  not  only  that 
the  former  is  a  woman,  and  the  other  a  man. 
The  difference  is  caused,  in  even  greater  degree, 
by  the  fact  that  Theodora  is  a  modern,  and 
Brutus  is  not.  It  is  scarcely  to  be  said  that 
the  whole  problem  in  Brutus  is  rendered  unreal 
by  laying  the  scene  in  ancient  times.  The 
character  which  Brutus  has  created  of  the 
heroic  consul  of  olden  Rome,  is  a  result,  which 
his  logical  poet's  imagination  leads  him  to.  But 
it  is  in  nowise  a  subjective  solution.  There  is 
here  no  pretense  of  anyone's  teaching  life- 
wisdom  for  modern  people. 


LIGHT   AND   SHADOW  205 

If  one  wishes  to  know  the  author's  personal 
solution,  one  must  go  to  Einar  in  Troens  Magt, 
Knut  Norby's  son.  He  is  faced  by  an  entirely 
analogous  conflict  to  Brutus.  Brutus  is  forced 
to  sentence  his  own  son,  and  Einar  to  witness 
against  his  father.  Brutus  knows  that  his  son 
has  done  evil;  Einar  knows  that  the  father's 
accusation  against  Wangen  is  false.  The  paral- 
lelism is  thus  complete;  in  both  cases  the  con- 
flict is  clear:  the  decision  rests  between  personal 
feelings  and  abstract  right. 

But  the  solution  is  different.  Bojer  does  not 
demand  of  the  modern  character,  Einar,  what  he 
asks  of  the  remote  Brutus.  And  the  solution, 
as  far  as  Einar  is  concerned,  gives  so  much  more 
personal  an  effect  that  he,  before  the  great  test 
comes,  has  held  just  those  ideas  which  we  have 
seen  in  Bojer's  earlier  books.  But  Einar  de- 
serts his  principles  when  it  comes  to  himself;  he 
can  not  act  contrary  to  his  feelings  for  his  father 
and  his  home  —  and  so  the  innocent  man  is 
sentenced,  and  the  unrighteous  triumphs. 

It  must,  however,  be  remarked,  that  although 
Einar  thus  fails  at  the  crucial  moment,  he  does 
not  fall  so  much  under  sentence  by  the  author 


206  JOHAN   BOJER 

as  do  all  the  remaining  characters  of  the  book. 
He  is  not  exposed,  nor  is  sentence  pronounced 
upon  him,  but  he  is  treated  sympathetically,  even 
with  favor.  And  what  is  the  secret,  what  is  it 
that  saves  him?     It  is  his  affection. 

This  may,  at  first  glance,  seem  strange.  A 
weak  and  unsatisfactory  solution.  Why  should 
he  be  allowed  to  run  away  from  the  defense  to 
a  happy  love?  But  when  one  thinks  about  it, 
one  understands,  after  all,  what  Bojer  means, 
and  sees  that,  from  this  point,  the  way  is  easy 
to  his  later  books.  Einar  is  driven  by  his  affec- 
tions to  do  wrong;  we  understand  that  he  must 
do  it,  and  we  understand  that  he  dares  to  —  for 
the  sake  of  his  love.  Such  is  life.  We  get  pain- 
ful blows,  run  up  against  difficulties  that  we  can 
not  surmount,  that  master  us  instead.  But  it 
is  still  worth  while  living  —  for  love's  sake. 

"Do  you  wonder  sometimes  what  actually 
you  believe,  Ingvald  mine?"  asks  the  engineer's 
wife  in  Vort  Rige.  One  could  have  asked  the 
same  question  of  the  author,  and  the  answer 
would  have  been:  in  the  power  of  love  and 
beauty  to  prevail,  despite  everything,  and  make 
life  a  wonderful  place.    Troubles  and  problems, 


LIGHT   AND   SHADOW  207 

difficulties  and  sufferings,  are  like  iron,  that  we 
could  never  force  our  way  through,  but  that 
melt  in  a  moment,  in  the  sunshine  of  affection. 

We  meet  this  faith  for  the  first  time  in  Hvide 
Fugle.  This  collection  of  fairy  tales  begins  with  a 
little  story  —  Kjaerligheten's  Oine  (The  Eyes  of 
Love)  —  whose  theme  Bojer  liked  so  much  that 
he  later  used  it  in  dramatic  form.  And  it  is  not 
without  cause.  Both  the  tale  and  the  play 
(which  was  published  in  1909)  are  among  the 
finest  things  Bojer  has  written,  and  are,  in  an 
eminent  degree,  characteristic  of  him  as  an 
author. 

Kjaerlighetens  Oine  treats  of  a  young  girl 
whose  beauty  and  fresh  joy  of  living  have  such 
power  that  everything  about  her  is  impressed 
by  them.  The  cross-grained,  niggardly  father, 
the  out-of-the-way  farm,  the  sour,  unwilling 
servants,  all  are  transformed,  all  life  is  brighter 
and  easier  because  of  this  young  and  beautiful 
woman;  "all  that  the  father  owned  was  like  a 
cloak  which  must  be  pure  and  sweet  because  it 
must  be  put  on  the  shoulders  of  his  little  girl, 
his  only  one." 

But  then  unhappiness  came  upon  them.    In  a 


208  JOHAN   BOJER 

fire  she  was  so  burned  that  her  face  was  dis- 
figured with  great  red  streaks.  People  tittered 
and  mocked,  children  cried  out  when  she  showed 
herself.  And  she  herself  was  smitten  to  the 
soul  by  the  unexpected  ill  fortune,  so  that  she, 
became  suspicious  and  bitter.  Every  time  a 
laugh  rang  out  in  the  house  she  thought  it  was 
she  whom  they  were  laughing  at,  each  time  she 
was  hurt  afresh,  and  brooded  over  it  —  and  al- 
ways the  desire  to  hit  back  grew  stronger.  Af- 
ter some  time  she  gave  up  the  solitary  life  she 
had  first  courted;  she  took  over  again  the  man- 
agement of  the  house,  but  was  now  wholly 
changed.  She  felt  herself  constantly  in  a  war 
of  defense,  and  every  time  she  discovered  a  fault 
in  others,  it  became  a  weapon  to  be  used  against 
them.  Her  bitterness  made  her  hard  and  angry, 
so  that  she  became  a  scourge  for  the  whole  house. 
Then  it  happened  that  she  met  a  man,  who  had 
loved  her  from  her  youth  and  who  was  blind  and 
suspected  nothing  of  her  accident,  and  through 
her  relations  with  him  she  was  transformed 
again.  The  fact  that  he  always  thought  of  her 
as  the  light-hearted,  lovable,  splendid  woman, 
who  brought  happiness  and  beauty  to  everyone 


LIGHT   AND   SHADOW  209 

about  her  made  her  try  to  be  so  again.  And  her 
desire  to  paint  every  thing  in  the  most  beautiful 
colors  possible  for  the  man  she  loved,  opened  her 
eyes  again  to  life's  loveliness. 

When  he  heard  later,  that  "a  great  suffering 
had  touched  her  face  with  its  beautiful  hands," 
it  had  no  effect.  To  him  she  was  always  the 
same.  And  her  spirit  really  was  again  the  same 
as  formerly.  She  thought  now  only  of  making 
other  people  happy,  as  she  was  herself,  and  all 
the  world  was  lovely  as  she  was  in  the  heart  of 
the  man  she  loved. 

The  young  woman  is  like  a  symbol  of  the 
kernel  of  Bojer's  writing.  When  one  conquers 
his  involuntary  fear  of  approaching  poetry  with- 
out leniency  and  hard-heartedly,  analyzing  the 
piece  of  writing,  one  sees  that  the  basic  idea,  in 
its  simplest  form,  is  the  same  as  that  which  we 
have  found,  more  than  all  else,  in  Bojer's  writ- 
ing. Everything  begins  subjectively,  that  is  to 
say,  it  is  the  feeling  that  controls  one  —  which 
puts  its  stamp  on  life  for  one  and  one's  environ- 
ment. When  the  young  girl  is  attacked  by  ill 
fortune,  and  bitterness  triumphs  over  her  soul, 
then  all  songs  and  joyousness  are  hushed  in  the 


210  JOHAN   BOJER 

house;  her  wound  makes  her  wound  others; 
her  bitterness  makes  others  bitter;  her  suffering 
stretches  beyond  her,  and  creates  new  suffering 
where  her's  ends.  But,  before  the  unhappiness, 
when  she  bloomed  with  youth  and  beauty,  and, 
later,  when  love  had  made  her  gentle  and  happy 
again,  then  joy  is  created  around  her,  the  sun- 
shine in  her  soul  calls  out  the  good  and  beau- 
tiful from  everything  and  every  place  where 
she  is. 

This  disposition  to  see  in  a  person's  master 
emotion  the  germ  of  one's  own  and  others'  des- 
tiny is,  in  itself,  not  a  cause  for  either  pessimism 
or  optimism.     But  it  can  be  both. 

Evil  creates  evil.  Enmity  begets  enmity. 
Pride  and  anxiety  and  secret  wounds  in  the  soul, 
yes,  even  mother  love  and  filial  affection  can  lead 
to  unhappiness  and  crime.  And  there  is  no  cer- 
tainty that  a  man  is  sincere  —  as  like  as  not  the 
passion  is  masquerading  in  the  character  of  an 
ideal.  The  young  girl  in  the  fairy  tale  creates 
a  God  according  to  her  own  needs  so  that  her 
conscience  may  be  soothed  and  her  scourge 
strike  harder.  This  is  the  dark  side  of  the  power 
of  passion,  and  while  it  is  this  theme  which  is 


LIGHT   AND    SHADOW  211 

being  emphasized,  the  writing  is  felt  to  be  pes- 
simistic. 

But  happiness  breeds  happiness.  Joy  brings 
forth  joy.  Beauty  and  love  and  brightness 
make  life  full  of  sunshine,  and  "each  single 
bright  thought  is  like  a  rose  that  wafts  its  fra- 
grance out  over  the  earth."  This  is  the  bright 
side  —  and  from  the  time  when  this  pushes  into 
the  foreground,  it  is  optimism  that  triumphs. 

The  scepticism  and  bitterness  that  filled 
Troens  Magt  and  Vort  Rige,  and  the  hymn  to 
youth  and  love  and  the  joy  of  living,  which  issues 
forth  in  Kjaerlighetens  Oine,  are  not  irreconcil- 
ably opposed;  they  are  only  two  sides  of  the 
same  thing. 

Now  we  understand  also,  why  Einar  in  Troens 
Magt  could  be  saved  from  the  darkness.  He 
fails  in  his  duty  for  the  sake  of  his  affection  — 
yes,  but  think  how  immaterial!  He  is  just  be- 
trothed, love's  first,  overpowering  happiness  fills 
him  —  is  that  not  infinitely  more  important? 

The  same  homage  to  love  and  youth  and 
beauty  which  we  meet  in  Kjaerlighetens  Oine 
appears  in  most  of  the  other  tales  in  Hvide 
Fugle.    In  one  of  them,  Paa  Mindernes  6  (In 


212  JOHAN    BOJER 

the  Isle  of  Remembrance)  it  is  related  how  five 
old  monks  after  a  busy  life  of  fellowship,  found 
a  small  society,  which  is  called  "The  Shining 
Word  of  Remembrance,"  in  which  they  will  re- 
call their  lives  not  with  repentance,  prayer,  and 
sorrow  for  sin,  but  remembering  all  the  joys 
that  life  has  showered  on  them,  the  golden 
beakers  they  have  emptied,  and  the  beautiful 
women  who  dowered  them  with  their  love. 

The  joy  of  living  and  repentance  are  directly 
contrasted  in  the  tale,  Ildblomsten  (The  Fire- 
weed),  which  treats  of  two  pilgrims  who  are 
on  their  way  to  the  holy  sepulchre,  in  order  to 
bewail  their  manifold  sins.  They  meet  a  young 
woman  and  the  thought  of  her  reawakens  their 
joy  of  living  so  as  to  move  one  of  them,  Don 
Alfonzo's,  heart.  The  meeting  was  but  short, 
but  yet  it  seemed  to  him,  that  the  way  was  less 
dusty  and  the  heavens  less  hot,  and  he  began  to 
see  beauty  in  the  brooks  and  trees  which  they 
passed.  The  thought  of  the  beautiful  woman 
grew  more  and  more  insistent  in  his  soul  and 
filled  him  with  brightness  and  joy,  but  his  com- 
panion, Irjam,  still  was  sunk  in  despair  over  the 
thought  of  his  sin  and  the  world's  baseness. 


LIGHT   AND    SHADOW  213 

They  came  to  a  rosebush  and  Irjam  cut  a 
branch,  tore  off  the  roses,  and  made  a  crown 
of  thorns,  which  he  set  on  his  head  in  remem- 
brance of  the  Saviour's  suffering,  and  to  mortify 
his  own  flesh.  But  Don  Alfonzo,  who  also  had 
picked  a  branch,  removed  the  thorns,  and  put  a 
beautiful  wreath  of  roses  about  his  forehead. 
Then  he  knelt  beside  Irjam  and  thanked  God 
that  there  were  roses  on  earth. 

And  so  they  rode  on,  side  by  side,  one  bowed 
and  racked  with  the  pain  of  his  crown  of  thorns, 
his  face  bloody,  the  other  with  the  crown  of  roses 
on  his  head,  and  upright  in  his  saddle,  because 
he  was  filled  with  thankfulness  over  the  beauty 
of  the  earth. 

At  last,  of  necessity,  their  ways  diverged  — 
one  went  on  to  weep  at  Jerusalem,  the  other 
turned,  and  went  back  through  the  wilderness 
on  a  pilgrimage  to  mankind. 

In  the  collection's  last  narrative  the  tale  has, 
finally,  become  a  myth.  The  Christian  God  and 
Don  Juan  are  set  opposite  one  another  and  Don 
Juan  conquers. 

When  Don  Juan  stood  before  the  great  judg- 
ment seat,  and  God  wanted  to  have  him  cast 


214  JOHAN   BOJER 

into  uttermost  darkness,  he  defended  himself 
by  saying  that  his  only  guilt  was  that  he  had 
appreciated  the  beauty  of  life.  "My  guilt  is, 
that  I  have  loved  and  worshiped  the  most  beau- 
tiful creations  which  came  forth  from  your  hand, 
and  I  knew  no  other  hymn  of  praise  to  them 
than  to  deck  them  with  my  kiss  and  caress." 

But  God  answered  that  Don  Juan's  love  had 
really  spread  death  and  sorrow  in  the  world;  he 
must  think  of  all  the  women  he  had  ruined. 
Don  Juan  then  asked  that  he  be  brought  face 
to  face  with  his  accusers,  and  God  asked  all  the 
women  whose  unhappiness  he  had  been  the  cause 
of  to  stand  forth. 

Then  it  so  happened  that  when  God  asked 
them  to  hurl  their  accusations  at  the  deceiver 
and  describe  their  sufferings,  they  looked  at  Don 
Juan,  and  blushed,  and  answered  that  they  no 
longer  remembered  this.  And  when  God  would 
still  sentence  Don  Juan,  there  arose  a  commotion 
among  all  the  young  women  he  had  betrayed  on 
earth,  they  cast  themselves  down  before  God's 
throne  and  sobbed  out:  "Save  him,  save  him!" 
And  God  wondered  and  asked  if  they  had  for- 
gotten all  the  trouble  they  had  suffered  for  his 


LIGHT   AND    SHADOW  215 

sake.  But  they  answered  that  it  was  nothing 
to  the  lasting  happiness  he  had  given  them. 
"Even  in  my  worst  agony  I  was  still  more  happy 
than  in  the  years  before  I  met  him,"  said  Donna 
Elvira.  And  Donna  Annunziata  added,  "Never 
was  my  trouble  so  great  but  my  happiness  was 
still  greater,  and  many  times  I  rose  in  my  cell  and 
folded  my  hands  and  blushed  because  I  thought 
of  him."  And  they  called  all  the  happy  women 
who  had  ever  loved  to  their  aid,  and  millions 
and  more  millions  gathered  before  God's  throne 
and  begged  for  the  betrayer. 

But  God  would  not  yield.  He  took  a  stone 
in  his  hand  and  said  that,  until  this  blossomed 
like  a  rosebush,  he  would  not  receive  Don  Juan 
into  his  heaven.  Then  Donna  Elvira  took  the 
stone  and  breathed  on  it,  and  all  the  other 
women  whom  Don  Juan  had  betrayed  on  earth, 
and  all  their  sisters  who  had  known  love's  sweet- 
ness,  gathered  about  the  stone  and  breathed  their 
warmth  upon  it,  watered  it  with  their  tears  and 
shone  upon  it  with  their  smiles  so  that  it  might 
blossom  like  a  rosebush  and  so  that  the  deceiver 
might  gain  eternal  happiness. 

"And  what  stone  could  long  hold  itself  hard 


216  JOHAN    BOJER 

under  that  warmth?"  Soon  —  there  stood 
Elvira  with  a  blooming  rosebush  in  her  hand, 
and  God  had  to  admit,  that,  to  the  love  of 
women,  nothing  is  impossible,  and  gave  Don 
Juan  a  place  in  his  Heaven. 

"But  Donna  Elvira  planted  her  rosebush  be- 
side God's  footstool  so  that  he  would  remember 
that  no  one  must  be  doomed  who  has  loved." 

In  all  these  tales  the  same  mood  prevails:  the 
pursuit  of  the  spontaneous  joy  of  living.  This 
joy  in  the  freshness  of  the  moment,  without 
thought  for  the  future,  this  belief  in  the  power 
of  beautiful  remembrance,  stands  in  direct  oppo- 
sition to  the  fear  of  what  is  to  come,  and  all 
regret  over  that  which  is  past.  Gylva  in 
Rorfloiterne  (The  Wind  in  the  Reeds),  who  sits 
in  prison  and  undergoes  the  most  dreadful  suf- 
fering for  the  sake  of  her  love,  says  these  beau- 
tiful words:  "I  did  not  suffer  so  much  in  the 
long  year  as  I  must  rejoice  in  one  poor  hour. 
If  I  were  to  pine  here  a  hundred  years,  yet  is  this 
no  equivalent  for  a  single  moment  in  Urmar's 
embrace."  They  pay  the  penalty  for  long  years 
for  a  joy  that  is  only  a  poor  thing  at  best  —  oh, 
yes  —  their  vice,  of  course.    And,  in  J.  P.  Jacob- 


LIGHT   AND    SHADOW  217 

sen,  the  accent  is  on  the  suffering  undergone, 
while  in  Bojer  it  is  on  the  joy.  There  springs 
neither  sorrow  nor  grief  from  his  red  roses,  but 
so  delightful  are  their  beauty  and  fragrance  that 
they  fill  the  heart  even  of  the  old  and  gray- 
headed  with  summer's  sweetness,  even  if  they 
must  be  paid  for  by  a  whole  life's  misery. 

This  is  an  attitude  towards  life  which  is  akin 
to  Stuckenberg's;  the  same  joy  over  remem- 
brances, the  same  scorn  for  those  that  speak 
evil  of  the  departed,  the  same  deep  gratitude 
towards  life.  But  the  tone  is  more  high  pitched 
than  in  Bojer,  the  happiness  more  exuberant, 
the  reveling  in  beauty  and  love  stronger,  more 
joyous.  But  Stuckenberg's  poetry  was,  of 
course,  the  expression  of  personal  experience  — 
Hvide  Fugle  is  a  fairy  tale  collection. 

Bojer  has  never  written  verse  —  he  wrote  fairy 
tales  instead.  From  the  very  beginning  of  his 
writing,  we  meet  these  fairy  tales,  side  by  side 
with  his  novels.  In  the  beginning,  he  struggled 
with  this  type  of  writing;  often  they  were  banal, 
often  altogether  too  strained  and  profound, 
often  the  symbols  were  obscure,  and  the  style 
lacking  in  confidence.     But,  later,  he  gained  the 


2i8  JOHAN   BOJER 

mastery  over  this  medium,  and  the  best  of  the 
tales  in  Hvide  Fugle  are  faultless  miniature 
pieces  of  art,  the  charm  of  whose  style  is  capped 
with  clearness  of  thought  and  wealth  of  feeling. 
Even  though  the  characters  and  symbols  of 
a  fairy  tale  do  not  give  so  direct  an  outlet  for 
a  poet's  feelings  as  the  subjective  lyric,  yet  they 
can,  assuredly,  convey  an  emotional  message, 
which  lies  deeper  than  that  we  can  get  from 
novels.  And  if  one  wants  to  understand  the  pro- 
found optimism  of  Bojer's  latest  works,  then 
one  must  not  forget,  that  when  his  scepticism 
found  utterance  in  the  great  heavy  novels,  his 
heart's  innermost  gladness  created  charming 
small  fairy  tales  in  praise  of  life. 

POLITIKEN 

November  25,  1917 
Johan  Bojer:  Verdens  Ansigt,  234  S.  Gyldendal. 

Among  Norwegian  authors  Johan  Bojer  is  the 
one  through  whose  art  the  heart-beats  of  the  age 
and  of  mankind  most  livingly  and  intensely 
throb.  He  is  the  one  who,  with  the  greatest 
absorption  and  unceasing  interest,  observes  and 


LIGHT   AND   SHADOW  219 

describes  "the  man  of  the  hour,"  and  his  books, 
which  spring  from  an  active  and  ardent  tempera- 
ment, seem  always  like  reports  of  the  time  and 
circumstances  in  which  we  live,  and  towards 
which  we  steer  our  course. 

In  Den  Store  Hunger  (The  Great  Hunger)  it 
is  true  the  account  is  of  the  Universe,  the  "blind" 
powers  that  guide  it;  hence  this  book  has  an 
abstract  flavor.  In  Verdens  Ansigt  (The  Face 
of  the  World)  it  is  description  of  men,  a  com- 
plaint against  the  demand  of  the  whole  upon 
the  sympathy  of  the  individual,  causing  a  sense 
of  responsibility  for  all  pain  and  all  wrong. 
This  book  is  a  sheer  cry  of  distress  from  a  man 
whose  life  is  laid  waste,  poisoned  and  ruined 
by  the  limitless  misery  which  is  outspread  upon 
this  earth,  a  cry  of  distress  from  a  man  who 
becomes  unable  to  look  upon  his  own  life's 
happiness  and  brightness  and  enjoy  it,  because 
the  pain  and  sorrow  of  mankind  overwhelm 
him,  beyond  help  and  saving.  He  who  has  once 
seen  the  world's  distorted  face,  never  recovers 
from  the  overpowering  impression.  He  hates 
her  white,  bloody  visage,  because  it  is  always 
staring  back  on  his  joy  and  his  bright  thoughts. 


220  JOHAN   BOJER 

And,  if  he  drives  it  away  a  single  time,  in  a  rare 
and  happy  moment,  he  must,  with  his  bewitched 
conscience's  most  strained  effort,  recall  it  anew; 
therefore  he  is  wounded  in  his  mind  by  suffer- 
ing's dreadful  weapons;  he  is  filled  with  anxiety 
for  the  soul's  happiness  and  the  body's  welfare. 
And  then  he  discovers  that  his  unhappiness  takes 
its  origin  in  his  need  to  let  his  mind  live  and 
suffer  with  all  mankind,  and  so  he  pulls  himself 
together  and  attempts  to  help  an  individual  man 
over  a  "purely  moral  difficulty,"  and  fails  in 
this  too ;  it  is  impossible  for  him  to  intrude  upon 
another  man's  soul  and  inner  life.  The  account 
of  this  last  and  decisive  development  in  his  life's 
disillusionment  is  the  book's  most  profound  sec- 
tion, at  every  point  flawless  in  its  psychological 
consistency;  and  the  minor  characters,  which 
are  here  brought  to  the  level  of  the  chief  char- 
acters, are  painted  with  a  penetrating  clearness 
that  can  only  find  a  possible  analogue  in  the 
world  literature's  most  renowned  works.  But 
this  man,  on  whom  the  world  and  mankind  rests 
its  sharp,  pained  glance,  sinks,  and  attempts,  in 
his  wretchedness,  modestly  and  sadly  to  console 
himself  with  the  unworldly  ideas  of  those  great 


LIGHT   AND    SHADOW  221 

solitary  men  "who  were  dreamers  on  mankind's 
way,"  those  men,  because  of  whom  "it  is  no 
longer  dark  upon  this  earth." 

There  is  an  unbroken  line  from  Vort  Rige 
(Our  Kingdom)  to  Verdens  Ansigt  (The  Face 
of  the  World)  and  the  "optimistic  development" 
in  Sigurd  Braa  and  Den  Store  Hunger  (The 
Great  Hunger)  seem  to  have  been  an  episode  in 
Johan  Bojer's  writing,  perhaps  as  baffling  as 
beautiful  and  glowing.  It  cannot  be  denied 
that,  in  this  his  latest  work,  the  writer  has 
firmer  ground  under  his  feet  than  in  Den  Store 
Hunger.  He  has  here  again  let  his  art  shine 
through  and  base  itself  on  established  truth  and 
bitter  reality's  sharp  light  and  immovable  foun- 
dations. He  has  created  a  work  of  art,  under 
whose  masterly  and  superb  technique  is  reiter- 
ated the  question:  Who  is  the  man,  strong 
enough  to  repress  a  cry  over  our  environment's 
dark  and  nameless  pain?  But,  in  the  face  of 
deep  and  heavy  misery,  there  is  relief  in  a  cry. 

RlCHARDT   GANDRUP 


222  JOHAN   BOJER 

POLITIKEN 

November  23,  191 1 
JohanBojer:  Liv  (Life),  novel  (C.B.N.F.). 

Liv  is  what  Johan  Bojer  has  called  his  new 
book,  and  it  overflows  with  life,  has  light  and 
shade,  warmth  and  chill,  like  life  itself.  And, 
for  the  first  time,  is  his  art  wholly  living,  wholly 
amalgamated  with  his  material,  wholly  rounded 
and  mature.  He  has,  in  others  of  his  books, 
discussed  deeper  subjects,  but,  not  invariably, 
been  able  to  come  out  free  and  uncomplained 
of,  set  himself  more  difficult  problems,  but  often 
solved  them  more  according  to  a  prearranged 
scheme  than  according  to  life's  own  solution. 
Strong  enough  not  to  overstrain  himself,  he  has 
grown  in  power  every  time.  Now  he  carries  life 
in  his  arms  without  staggering,  almost  with  a 
little  vain  smile  at  the  fact  that  it  doesn't  weigh 
more. 

Naturally  it  does,  and  he  will  not  remain 
oblivious  of  this.  But  it  is  an  outlet  for 
strength,  at  times,  to  believe  one's  self  so  strong! 

Whoever  has  followed  Johan  Bojer's  artistic 


LIGHT   AND    SHADOW  223 

development,  will  understand  what  he  has  ac- 
complished in  this  book.  Whereas  he  previously 
rattled  the  chains  of  a  problem,  he  now  casts 
himself  into  life's  mad  whirl,  in  love  with  its 
manifold  rich  possibilities,  with  his  heart  open 
for  its  great  things  and  its  small  happenings, 
happy  in  the  feeling  of  being  part  of  it,  and 
unafraid  of  its  shadows.  He  has  learned  several 
things  in  the  passing  years,  both  of  himself  and 
others,  finally,  "that  one  must  make  one's  self 
respected  by  destiny";  as  the  book's  chief  char- 
acter, the  painter  Paul  Tangen,  expresses  it, 
"be  the  one  to  attack  —  as  it  were,  give  it  a 
kick  and  say  "Three  blows  from  life,  my  friend; 
of  us  two,  I  intend  to  be  master." 

Ah  well,  this  thing  is  good  to  have  attempted 
even  if,  as  Paul  Tangen  himself  had  to  admit, 
it  is  of  no  great  avail  in  the  application;  but  I 
wonder  if  this  isn't  one  of  the  things  that  Danish 
authors  sometimes  are  so  willing  to  forget? 
Most  of  our  own  books  in  the  last  few  decades 
are  written  with  a  different  motto  than  "it  is 
better  worth  while  to  conquer  opposition  than 
to  knuckle  under."  Much  opposition  has  not 
been  conquered  in  modern  Danish  literature, 


224  JOHAN    BOJER 

either  artistically  or  humanly  speaking.  But 
it  is  by  the  strength  of  this  self  confidence,  of 
this  triumphant  endurance,  that  Johan  Bojer  has 
come  eventually  to  control  his  material  com- 
pletely. "He  who  sows  death  can  not  reap  life," 
but  he  who  plants  life,  gets  life  in  return,  even 
from  death.  This  is  the  difference  between 
Danish  and  Norwegian  literature  in  our  day  — 
a  contrast  which  now  is  disappearing,  but,  in 
which,  we,  up  to  this  time,  for  a  long  while,  have 
been  the  weaker. 

All  the  way  from  Bjornson's  youth  and 
through  Lie,  Kielland,  Amalie  Skram,  Nor- 
wegian prose  has  been  stronger  than  Danish, 
whose  only  point  of  superiority  was  that  poor 
concept,  style.  Norwegians  did  not  force  them- 
selves to  put  on  a  stylistic  straight  jacket  but 
wrote  freely  and  indiscriminately,  at  their  own 
good  pleasure,  and  carried  off  the  laurels  in  this 
way.  Art  must  be  raw  in  preference  to  being 
conventionally  well-bred. 

Johan  Bojer's  novel  is  not  of  this  class,  but 
fresh,  lusty,  mature.  More  rich  in  characters 
one  is  glad  to  meet  and  in  thoughts  one  cannot 
forget. 


LIGHT   AND    SHADOW  225 

How  pleasant  to  review  a  book  that  one  has 
read  with  pleasure.  It  crops  up  in  one's  con- 
sciousness like  the  face  of  a  person  one  has  come 
to  love,  it  persists  in  one's  thoughts  and  gives 
rise  to  new  ideas.  It  is  like  a  gift  the  kind- 
ness of  which  stays  in  one's  heart!  Is  there  a 
fault  in  Bojer's  book?  Like  enough,  but  I  did 
not  discern  it:  it  is  lost  in  the  abundant  rich- 
ness, like  a  piece  of  chaff  in  the  pile  of  pure 
grain  that  stands  before  me,  and  I  have  no 
curiosity  to  go  peeping  and  saying:  "See  — 
here  is  some  chaff.  You  could  have  winnowed 
your  grain  more  carefully!" 

Sometimes  it  is  the  critic's  task,  with  a  sweep- 
ing gesture  to  draw  attention  fixedly  to  the 
whole,  and  such  is  the  case  here.  And  yet  no 
summary  of  the  novel's  contents  shall  be  given; 
that  cannot  be  done  without  doing  wrong.  It 
is  a  book  of  the  mountains  and  of  Christiania, 
filled  with  a  love-song  about  Norway. 

"Many  miles  away  rose  and  sunk  the  white 
horizon.  The  clouds  there  assumed  fantastic 
shapes  of  men  and  beasts.  Two  lovers  stood 
in  the  North  with  their  heads  beneath  the  clouds 
and  gossiped  as  from  all  eternity,  a  rift  in  a 


226  JOHAN    BOJER 

mountain  is  a  valley  with  many  parishes,  and 
beyond  are  more  mountains  and  more  rifts. 
That  is  Norway."  .  .  .  " I  believe  almost  all  Chris- 
tiania  is  going  to  the  country,"  says  one  of  the 
book's  characters.  "Yes!"  says  Tangen,  "are 
you  so  much  out  of  date  as  not  to  know  the  great 
religious  change  in  Norway?  The  churches 
stand  empty  in  summer  time,  my  friend,  for  the 
gods  of  our  day  have  flitted  to  the  mountains." 

And,  in  the  mountains,  many  of  the  novel's 
most  delightful  chapters  find  their  setting,  chap- 
ters filled  with  a  fresh  air  one  longs  for.  Here 
also,  another  of  the  chief  characters  of  the 
book,  Reidar  Bang,  meets  the  woman  who  is 
his  fate.  She  is  the  best  drawn  of  all,  a  dream- 
ing, solitary,  defiant,  devoted  woman,  perhaps 
the  most  superb  character  in  all  Bojer's  work. 
The  final  chapters,  when  she  at  last,  too  late, 
becomes  Reidar  Bang's  wife,  mark,  for  the  mo- 
ment, the  high  point  of  Johan  Bojer's  art. 

Johan  Bojer  has,  previously,  for  example,  in 
Troens  Magt  (Power  of  a  Lie)  brought  to- 
gether more  original  ideas  than  in  Liv,  but 
in  no  place  are  presented  more  living  characters. 
What  is  the  greatest  thing?    A  thought  can  be 


LIGHT   AND    SHADOW  227 

great  and  a  character  can  be  great,  but,  in  art, 
that  is  greatest  which  is  most  nearly  perfect. 
And  he  has  never  in  his  other  works  presented 
anything  so  nearly  perfect  as  the  best  chapters 
in  Liv. 
It  is  a  book  that  will  live. 

L.  C.  Nielsen 


APPENDIX 
THE    GREAT   HUNGER 

BY  JOHN  GALSWORTHY 

IN  reviewing  this  novel  by  the  distinguished 
Norwegian  writer  Johan  Bojer  (or  Boyer, 
as  we  should  spell  it  in  England)  I  labor  under 
two  advantages.  It  is  the  first  work  of  fiction 
I  have  ever  reviewed,  and  I  am  acquainted  with 
the  previous  work  of  the  same  writer,  whose 
novel,  "The  Power  of  a  Lie,"  must  be  well  known 
to  English  readers.  I  come  to  it,  then,  with  a 
mind  hopelessly  untrammeled,  and  a  predis- 
position of  interest  in  its  theme.  What  is  it  we 
are  all  after  in  life  —  what  is  the  Ultima  Thule 
of  our  souls,  if  we  may  still  use  that  word? 
Desire  to  reach  that  is  "the  great  hunger." 

The  story  of  Peer  Holm  is  the  pilgrimage  of 
a  man  half -consciously  traveling  the  long  road  to 
the  Ultima  Thule  of  his  soul ;  passing  unsatisfied 

the  goals  of  knowledge,  of  power,  of  love,  all 

229 


23o  JOHAN   BOJER 

the  milestones  of  a  full  life,  and  coming  very 
late,  very  broken,  but  unconquered,  to  realiza- 
tion at  the  last. 

This  book  could  only  have  been  written  by 
a  Scandinavian.  It  has  the  stark  realistic  spir- 
ituality characteristic  of  a  race  with  special 
depths  of  darkness  to  contend  with,  and  its 
own  northern  sunlight  and  beauty.  A  very  deep 
love  of  Nature  colors  and  freshens  the  work  of 
this  writer,  and  gives  it  that  —  I  would  not  say 
national,  but  rather  local  —  atmosphere  and 
flavor  which  is  the  background  of  true  art.  For 
though  art  is  the  great  live  wire  of  communi- 
cation between  man  and  man,  which  knows  not 
boundaries,  all  separate  works  of  art  are  crea- 
tions of  individuals  coming  of  special  breeds, 
in  special  environments;  and  are  just  as  dis- 
tinctive as  the  flavors  of  wines,  whose  essential 
nourishment  and  uplift  are  one. 

On  our  English  imaginative  literature  only 
three  foreign  schools  or  currents  of  fiction  and 
drama  have  had  influence  during  the  last  half 
century  —  the  French,  the  Russian,  and  the 
Scandinavian.  A  single  writer  from  other  coun- 
tries here  and  there,  such  as  d'Annunzio,  Haupt- 


APPENDIX  231 

mann,  Sienkiewicz,  Jokai,  Maartens,  has  been 
read,  but  has  had  no  deflecting  power.  How 
much,  on  the  other  hand,  we  have  owed  these 
last  thirty  years  to  the  French  fictionists  — 
Dumas,  Flaubert,  De  Maupassant,  Anatole 
France;  to  the  Russian  —  Turgeniev,  Tolstoi, 
Dostoievsky,  and  Tchekov;  to  the  Scandinavian 
—  Ibsen,  Bjornson,  Hamsun,  and  Strindberg,  it 
would  be  impossible  to  unravel  and  discover. 

Johan  Bojer,  with  "The  Great  Hunger"  now 
accessible  to  English  readers,  will  assuredly 
swell  the  stream  of  Scandinavian  influence  on 
English  fiction. 

The  texture  of  this  work  is  firm  and  light, 
without  longueurs.  The  book  "marches,"  and 
has  a  certain  coherent  unconventionality,  with- 
out the  extravagance  which  mars  much  belauded 
modern  work.  There  is  in  it  an  essential  clarity, 
a  quality  which  cannot  be  overpraised,  or  over 
recommended  to  young  writers.  Its  originalities 
of  form  do  not  jar,  at  least  on  me,  who  am,  per- 
haps, over-sensitive  in  that  matter.  The  trans- 
lation is  exceptionally  able,  and  one  would  think 
that  but  little  of  the  atmosphere  has  leaked  ^ 
away. 


232  JOHAN   BOJER 

It  is  always  a  question  in  a  novel  which  sets 
out  to  shadow  forth  a  theme,  or  —  shall  we  say? 
—  a  meditation,  which  has  entranced  its  author, 
how  far  that  theme  or  meditation  will  get  pre- 
cedence of  the  life  and  characters  chosen  to 
embody  it.  And,  in  reading  this  novel,  so  touch- 
ingly  searching  and  sincere,  there  rises  some- 
times the  feeling  that  Peer  and  Merle  and  the 
minor  characters,  clear  and  convincing  though 
they  are,  lack  not  depth  exactly  nor  individual- 
ity, but  a  certain  intimacy  and  glow;  and  this, 
I  think,  is  due  to  the  absorption  of  their  creator 
in  the  mood  of  discovery  which  begat  the  book. 
The  theme  is  greater  and  more  interesting  to 
him  and  to  his  readers  than  the  human  material 
which  embodies  it.  The  scale  tips  a  little  in 
favor  of  the  theme,  but  that  is  the  only  criti- 
cism I  find  to  pass  on  a  work  which  interested 
me  from  first  page  to  last. 

The  story  told,  fine  and  pathetic,  is  common 
enough  in  this  world  of  strenuous  endeavor, 
accomplishment,  and  decline.  Peer  Holm,  born 
and  brought  up  in  poverty,  fights  to  educate 
himself,  becomes  a  great  engineer,  and  gains 
knowledge,  wealth,  power,  and  love;  yet  all  the 


APPENDIX  233 

time  is  dimly  conscious  of  not  having  reached 
the  heart  of  his  own  existence.  He  goes  on 
reaching  out,  and  loses  again  his  health,  his 
wealth,  his  power,  till  he  becomes  a  broken  man 
in  a  poverty  as  great  as  that  from  which  he 
rose.  It  is  only  at  the  lowest  ebb  of  his  worldly 
fortunes  that  he  finds  satisfaction  for  his  long 
hunger  and  reaches  the  Ultima  Thule  of  his 
soul. 

In  the  course  of  this  pilgrimage  all  the  formal 
stars  are  quenched,  the  customary  shibboleths 
of  happiness  dispersed;  accepted  purposes  of 
existence  questioned  and  found  wanting;  God, 
as  we  have  known  Him,  dismissed.  Only  when 
the  waters,  as  it  were,  are  closing  over  him  does 
he  read  at  last  the  riddle  of  human  existence, 
which  has  been  to  him  so  starkly  unanswerable 
all  his  life. 

The  final  episode  described  in  Peer's  letter  to 
his  friend  Klaus  Brock  is  a  fitting  culmination, 
and  the  book  ends  on  the  top  note  of  interest 
both  in  event  and  in  that  presentment  of  life 
which  we  call  art. 

I  will  n$t  give  that  episode;  for,  without  its 
context  and  all  that  goes  before  it,  it  might  seem 


234  JOHAN   BOJER 

unreal,  even  superhuman;  but  I  would  wish  to 
quote  in  full  two  passages  of  the  letter  which 
narrates  it:  — 

"I  sat  alone  on  the  promontory  of  existence, 
with  the  sun  and  the  stars  gone  out,  and  ice-cold 
emptiness  above  me,  about  me,  and  in  me,  on 
every  side. 

"...  But  then,  my  friend,  by  degrees  it 
dawned  on  me  that  there  was  still  something 
left.  There  was  one  little  indomitable  spark  in 
me,  that  began  to  glow  all  by  itself  —  it  was  as 
if  I  were  lifted  back  to  the  first  day  of  existence, 
and  an  eternal  will  rose  up  in  me,  and  said: 
'Let  there  be  light!' 

"This  will  it  was  that,  by-and-by,  grew  and 
grew  in  me,  and  made  me  strong.  .    .    . 

"I  began  to  feel  an  unspeakable  compassion 
for  all  men  upon  earth,  and  yet,  in  the  last  resort, 
I  was  proud  that  I  was  one  of  them. 

"I  understood  how  blind  fate  can  strip  and 
plunder  us  all,  and  yet  something  will  remain  in 
us  at  the  last,  that  nothing  in  heaven  or  earth 
can  vanquish. 

"Our  bodies  are  doomed  to  die,  and  our  spirit 
to  be  extinguished,  yet  still  we  bear  within  us  the 


APPENDIX  235 

spark,  the  germ  of  our  eternity,  of  harmony  and 
light  both  for  the  world  and  for  God. 

"And  I  knew  now  that  what  I  had  hungered 
after  in  my  best  years  was  neither  knowledge, 
nor  honor,  nor  riches;  nor  to  be  a  priest  or  a 
great  creator  in  steel.  No,  my  friend,  what  I 
had  hungered  after  was  to  build  a  temple,  not 
chapels  for  prayers  or  churches  for  waiting  peni- 
tent sinners,  but  a  temple  for  the  human  spirit 
in  its  grandeur,  where  we  could  lift  up  our  souls 
in  an  anthem  as  a  gift  to  heaven."  .  .  .  "As 
for  me  —  I  did  not  do  this  thing  for  Christ's 
sake,  or  because  I  loved  my  enemy,  but  because, 
standing  upon  the  ruins  of  my  life,  I  felt  a  vast 
responsibility.  Mankind  must  arise  and  be 
better  than  the  blind  powers  that  order  its  ways ; 
in  the  midst  of  its  sorrows,  it  must  take  heed 
that  the  God-like  does  not  die.  The  spark  of 
eternity  was  once  more  aglow  in  me  and  said: 
'Let  there  be  light.'  And  more  and  more  it  came 
home  to  me  that  it  is  man  himself  that  must 
create  the  divine  in  heaven  and  on  earth  —  that 
that  is  his  triumph  over  the  dead  omnipotence 
of  the  universe.    Therefore  I  went  out  and 


236  JOHAN   BOJER 

sowed  the  corn  in  my  enemy's  field  that  God 
might  exist." 

So  the  book  ends  with  "the  Great  Hunger 
appeased." 

A  very  fine  work,  both  in  execution  and  in 
meaning. 

John  Galsworthy 


THE   GREAT   HUNGER 

BY  JOSEPH  HERGESHEIMER 

THE  tragic  difficulty  of  novels  unannounced 
by  adventitious  circumstance  or  stereo- 
typed names  is  to  find  friends.  They  always 
exist,  even  in  generous  numbers  for  really  fine 
writing,  but  they  are  scattered,  and  there  is 
nothing  in  the  exterior  of  a  book  to  reassure  the 
thoughtful  and — of  necessity — sceptical  reader. 
Hundreds  of  "great"  novels  are  published  every 
season,  novels  surpassing  Conrad's  or  Hardy's, 
easily  "better  than  the  Russians"  at  their  own 
game ;  they  are  purchased  with  the  hope  —  the 
vain  hope  —  that  they  will  at  least  fulfil  a  part 
of  the  advertised  promise.  But  even  this  they 
fail  to  do,  and  a  fresh  assault  is  made  on  the 
same  terms. 

If,  for  example,  Mr.  Galsworthy  had  not  de- 
parted from  his  invariable  custom  and  written 
a  public  commendation  of  The  Great  Hunger, 
I  probably  should  never  have  read  it.    The 

337 


238  JOHAN   BOJER 

quality  of  the  review  and  of  his  personal  pre- 
occupations, told  me  that  it  was  not  the  special 
form  of  creative  literature  which  most  engages 
me;  such  turned  out  to  be  fact,  but  there  was 
so  much  beauty,  so  much  pure  gold,  in  The  Great 
Hunger  that  to  follow  Mr.  Galsworthy's  praise 
was  not  only  a  pleasure  but  an  absolute  duty. 

I  have  spoken  of  the  friends  of  a  novel,  and  it 
will  be  immediately  seen  that,  with  the  novels, 
they  must  vary  very  widely.  The  friends  of 
one  are  not  the  friends  of  all:  the  adherents  of 
Tarzan  would  form  no  warm  attachment  for 
Johan  Bojer's  book.  It  is  common  honesty  here 
to  admit  that  —  in  the  accepted,  yes,  the  vulgar, 
sense  —  it  hasn't  a  happy  ending.  Naturally 
the  popular  human  conception  of  a  happy  end 
is  the  acquisition  of  fame  and  fortune  and  what, 
conventionally,  is  called  love.  Of  course  it  is 
not  love,  for  there,  too,  a  material  symbol  is 
insisted  on  —  either  physical  beauty,  money  or 
an  amazing  chastity.  Love  is  different  from 
this,  just  as  The  Great  Hunger  is  different  from 
volumes  catching  up  and  re-echoing  the  stupid, 
lying  formulas  of  a  gilded  and  easy  triumph. 

Nothing,  except  the  splendid  passionate  style, 


APPENDIX  239 

of  The  Great  Hunger  is  easy:  Peer  Holm,  the 
illegitimate  son  of  a  captain  and  man  of  fashion, 
fights  all  his  life  for  the  successive  objects  of 
his  ends,  and  usually,  at  the  point  of  success, 
they  dissolve  into  the  slow  dawning  realization 
that  they  were  only  cold  mist.  At  the  last  these 
veils,  penetrated  one  by  one  in  suffering,  are  put 
aside  and  Peer  rises  to  victory  .  .  .  but  it  is 
solely  a  victory  within  himself  —  the  clamorers 
for  visible  and  impressive  circumstance,  like  the 
dull  villagers  among  whom  Peer  Holm  finally  be- 
came a  blacksmith,  will  find  unrelieved  cause  for 
dissatisfaction. 

Like  all  novels  true  to  the  deeper  qualities 
of  Christ  it  will  be  a  cause  of  annoyance  to  a 
world  of  fat  comfort,  where  religion  is  conven- 
iently held  in  an  automatic  and  calendared  ob- 
servance. Here,  discarding  every  deadening 
reassurance,  a  man  is  relentlessly  drawn  across 
the  loud  plain  of  life,  through  poverty,  hunger 
and  loneliness  and  loss,  through  triumph  and 
riches  —  if  this  were  transposed  to  the  end  all 
the  requirements  of  wide  popularity  would  be 
assured  —  sensual  love,  champagne,  gay  music 
and  thronged  parties.    However,  he  moves  on 


240  JOHAN   BOJER 

into  the  darkness  of  utter  material  disaster  and 
the  most  insidious  suffering  that  men  can  endure. 
Out  of  so  much  Peer  emerges,  a  Peer  wasted 
and  streaked  with  gray,  who  has  had  to  send  his 
children  to  others  for  support;  Peer,  who  har- 
nessed the  Nile,  hammering  the  steel  sparks  into 
an  obscure  hut;  with,  at  the  last,  only  this  for 
our  reward  —  that  he  sows  his  bitter  enemy's 
field  with  corn.  Only  this,  but  it  is  my  fore- 
most conviction,  the  foundation  on  which  even- 
tually everything  else  must  rest,  that  it  is  the 
most  radiantly  happy  end  imaginable. 

II 

When  I  mentioned  that  The  Great  Hunger 
was  not  precisely  the  type  of  novel  to  which  my 
preference  was  addressed  I  meant  and  discovered 
that  Johan  Bojer  had  essentially  a  more  opti- 
mistic mind  than  my  own;  there  was  in  him  the 
seriousness  of  a  writer  convinced  that  men  were 
perfectable.  This  splendid  feeling  carries  with 
it  an  irresistible  responsibility  —  a  duty  out- 
side the  severe  boundaries  of  my,  it  may  well  be 
less  important,  engagement.    In  this  his  novel 


APPENDIX  241 

fulfils  every  conceivable  obligation;  it  is  an  au- 
thentic document  of  heroic  spirituality.  Yet 
if  it  had  been  that  alone  I  should  never  have 
undertaken  to  speak  of  it  formally.  How,  ac- 
ceptably, could  I?  The  Great  Hunger  has  an- 
other side,  a  quality  of  a  different  beauty,  and 
about  which,  with  encouragement,  I  could  write 
interminably. 

Just  exactly  what  the  beauty  is  I  am  unpre- 
pared, together  with  every  one  else  who  has 
given  life  to  its  mystery,  to  say.  Yet  it  has  such 
a  tangible  reality,  so  many  men  may  discern  it 
in  common,  that  it  is  permissible  to  discuss  it 
with  only  the  faultiest  understanding.  But 
here,  again,  I  am  under  an  apparent  disadvan- 
tage —  I  have  no  actual  knowledge  of  the  mean- 
ing of  practically  all  the  words  used  in  critical 
efforts  of  this  kind. 

The  reason  for  this  may  well  be  that  I  am  not 
a  critical  writer,  and  that  such  an  effort  on  my 
part  can  be  no  more  than  presumptuous.  That 
has  some  truth,  but  not  an  overwhelming 
amount;  on  many  sides  the  creative  writer  and 
the  mere  reader  are  closer  to  the  core  of  a  novel 
than  the  professional  or  temperamental  critic. 


242  JOHAN    BOJER 

This  is  a  statement  that  I  can  affirm  with  a  cer- 
tain painful  security.  The  stirring  beauty  of 
The  Great  Hunger,  I  am  convinced,  can  be  best 
expressed  in  terms  of  warm  enthusiasm  rather 
than  from  remote  position  of  fixed  detachment. 
It  would  perhaps  be  correct  to  say  that  it  is 
clearest  explained  in  phrases  of  its  own  kind. 

Beauty,  then,  exists  in  it  to  a  thrilling  degree, 
the  beauty  that  pinches  the  heart  and  inter- 
feres with  breathing.  It  has  the  inexplicable 
loveliness  that  rare  individuals  possess,  and 
which  by  no  means  can  be  accounted  for  in  set 
conventional  attributes.  In  the  first  place,  it 
is  the  book  of  a  singularly  pure  mind;  not  the 
opaque  purity  of  a  glazed  white  porcelain  sur- 
face, but  that  of  an  undefiled  revealing  spacious- 
ness; it  is  the  book  of  a  mind  above  any  bribe 
or  mitigating  lie  or  quilted  compromise.  Conse- 
quently it  is  not  a  novel  for  the  bribed,  the  liars, 
or  the  easily  dogmatic.  Its  beauty,  for  recog- 
nition, demands  something  in  the  way  of  cor- 
responding virtue. 

My  pleasure  in  it  was  incidental  and  unmoral, 
a  delight  in  the  simply  vivified  life  of  the  pas- 
sages: Peer,  a  country  boy  with  his  little  chest 


APPENDIX  243 

on  his  shoulder,  comes  to  town  and  finds  a  board- 
ing place  for  country  folk;  he  is  defrauded,  for 
the  moment,  of  his  patrimony  by  a  detestable  in- 
dividual, and  sturdily  sets  to  work,  to  work  and 
grind  and  blunder  through  technical  pages  while 
youth  is  wandering  through  the  summer  evening 
streets: 

"And  in  the  evening  he  would  stick  his  head 
out  of  his  two  paned  window  that  looked  on  to 
the  street  and  would  see  the  lads  and  girls  com- 
ing back,  flushed  and  noisy,  with  flowers  and 
green  boughs  in  their  hats,  crazy  with  sunshine 
and  fresh  air." 

Impressed  by  a  growing  sense  of  responsibility, 
no  more  than  a  boy  in  a  wretched  shell  of  a 
room,  he  sends  for  his  half  sister,  lonely  like 
himself,  and  together,  after  some  scant  bread 
and  butter  and  doubtful  coffee,  they  drift  hap- 
pily from  waking  dreams  to  sleep: 

"Well,  good  night,  Louise." 

"Good  night,  Peer." 

Why  this,  in  particular,  should  be  beautiful 
I  am  unprepared  to  say;  yet  that  pinching  of  the 
heart,  the  catch  in  breathing,  were  sudden  and 
tyrannical.    Such  notes  are  only  fragmentary, 


244  JOHAN   BOJER 

but  then  anything  beside  the  novel  itself  will  be. 
There  are  many  such  irradiated  episodes;  yet  I 
must  admit  that  I  found  those  at  the  beginning 
and  the  end  the  most  irresistible.  There  is,  curi- 
ously enough,  something  in  the  spectacle  of 
material  success  fatal  to  the  emotion  I  am 
attempting  to  indicate. 


Ill 

The  more  serious  aspects,  those,  at  least,  so 
generally  regarded  as  more  serious,  of  The  Great 
Hunger,  I  must  leave  for  discussion  to  abler 
abilities  than  mine.  Mr.  Galsworthy  has  already 
done  it  very  perfectly.  But  no  one  could  miss 
the  utter  charm  of  Bojer's  girls  and  women.  In 
spite  of  limitless  protestations  to  the  contrary, 
charming  women  are  few  in  fiction;  perhaps, 
though,  no  scarcer  there  than  in  life.  Anyhow, 
their  tenderness,  their  lovely  shyness  and  poign- 
ant surrenders,  the  little  vanities  and  wistful 
smiles  and  muslins,  pervade  Johan  Bojer's  pages. 

Louise  and  Merle,  the  saeter  girl  that  —  after 
she  has  finished  the  milking  —  Peer  kissed,  vi- 
brate with  reality  and  appealing  warmth.    They 


APPENDIX  24s 

are  drawn  with  the  magic  which  is  —  to  me  — 
the  supreme  literary  gift;  they,  and  the  mo- 
ments in  which  they  are  presented: 

"It  was  near  midnight  when  he  stood  by  the 
shore  of  a  broad  mountain  lake,  beneath  a  snow 
flecked  hillside.  .  .  .  And,  see  —  over  the  lake, 
that  still  mirrored  the  evening  red,  a  boat  ap- 
peared moving  toward  the  island,  and  two  white- 
sleeved  girls  sat  at  the  oars,  singing  as  they 
rowed.  A  strange  feeling  came  over  him.  Here 
—  here  he  would  stay." 

"Peer  .  .  .  watched  her  as  she  stood  in  her 
long  white  gown  before  the  toilet  table  with  the 
little  green  shaded  lamps,  doing  her  hair  for  the 
night  in  a  long  plait.  Neither  of  them  spoke. 
He  could  see  her  face  in  the  glass,  and  saw  that 
her  eyes  were  watching  him,  with  a  soft,  mys- 
terious glance  —  the  scent  of  her  hair  seemed 
to  fill  the  place  with  youth." 

And  this,  at  the  end: 

"There  by  the  fence  stood  Merle,  looking  at 
me.  She  had  drawn  a  kerchief  forward  over  her 
brow,  after  the  fashion  of  the  peasant  women, 
so  that  her  face  was  in  shadow;  but  she  smiled 
to  me  —  as  if  she,  too,  the  stricken  mother,  had 


246  JOHAN   BOJER 

risen  up  from  the  ocean  of  her  suffering  that 
here,  in  the  daybreak,  she  might  take  her  share 
in  the  creating  of  God." 

That,  as  I  began  by  saying,  will  be  widely 
regarded  as  an  unhappy  ending;  but  if  Peer  and 
Merle  had  been  left  standing  on  the  terrace  of 
their  country  house,  looking  down  over  their 
gardens  and  orchards  and  stables,  if  they  had 
been  left  rich  and  arrogant  and  inert,  all  would 
have  been  well.  As  it  is  —  the  whisper  of  the 
only  possible  salvation,  the  utmost  optimism  — 
the  public  will  shift  uneasily,  mutter  or  even 
impatiently  protest,  and  turn  with  a  sigh  of  for- 
getfulness  and  relief  to  the  stupid  formulas  of 
a  lying  triumph. 

Joseph  Hergesheimer 


THE   FACE   OF   THE   WORLD 

BY  JAMES  BRANCH  CABELL 
I 

WHAT  Johan  Bojer  planned  to  make  The 
Face  of  the  World  there  is  no  way  of 
telling.  But  as  the  volume  stands  it  is  a  very- 
handsome  piece  of  irony;  and  its  main  char- 
acter in  particular  is  "rendered"  in  such  a 
manner  that  all  readers  of  this  book  will  (I 
believe)  remember  Harold  Mark  for  a  long 
while,  with  (I  sincerely  trust)  unuttered  senti- 
ments. 

This  Harold  Mark  the  reader  encounters  as 
a  newly  graduated  Norwegian  doctor,  content- 
edly married,  and  temporarily  established  in 
Paris,  where  his  wife,  Thora,  is  vaguely  study- 
ing "art"  at  the  Louvre  and  thereabouts.  And 
the  two  were  happy  enough  until  Harold  fell  to 
thinking  of  a  world  he  and  his  fellow  creatures 
inhabited  and  began  extending  toward  his  fel- 
low creatures  a  great,  burning  sympathy. 

247 


248  JOHAN   BOJER 

Now,  as  everybody  knows,  when  Scandinavians 
once  begin  sympathizing  they  go  further  than 
the  philanthropists  of  more  abstemious  races, 
who  can  take  pity  or  leave  it  alone.  Thus  this 
great,  burning  sympathy  at  once  demolished 
Harold's  liking  for  Thora's  art.  "Looking  at 
Veronese's  beautiful  women,  he  thought  of  the 
number  of  slaves  there  must  have  been  to  main- 
tain such  an  article  of  luxury."  He  would  even 
embarrass  his  wife  by  voicing  such  high  reflec- 
tions quite  openly  before  strangers. 

One  day  Harold  and  Thora  were  standing  in 
front  of  David's  picture  of  Napoleon's  corona- 
tion. Thora  was  for  saying  the  proper  things 
and  for  enjoying  all  the  proper  reactions;  but 
Harold's  devastating  contribution  to  esthetic 
criticism  was  to  remark  that  Napoleon  was  "one 
of  the  world's  greatest  criminals"  and  to  reflect 
"How  far  along  the  world  would  have  been  if 
only  he  had  lost  the  battle  of  Lodi! " 

Thora  was  startled,  but  she  exhibited  com- 
mendable self-restraint  by  turning  silently  away 
from  him  to  converse  with  a  Finnish  sculptor 
who  estimated  the  Louvre  pictures  by  more  cus- 
tomary touchstones. 


APPENDIX  249 

Then  came  the  evening  when  there  was  a  pub- 
lic meeting  in  the  Place  de  la  Republique  to 
protest  against  the  massacre  of  the  Jews  in  Kiev, 
and  Harold  was  wishful  to  extend  to  these  dead 
Jews  his  great,  burning  sympathy  by  standing  in 
the  crowd  and  hearing  M.  Anatole  France  de- 
liver an  address. 

But  Thora 's  feeling  was  that  for  them  to  stand 
in  the  crowd  in  all  that  rain  would  do  small  good 
to  the  dead  Jews  and  a  great  deal  of  harm  to 
her  best  clothes.  So  she  undressed  and  went 
to  bed.  "Do  you  come  too ! "  she  urged.  "And 
the  candle  threw  a  yellow  light  over  the  simple 
bed  and  her  pretty  young  face,  while  the  slender, 
warm  body  beneath  the  bedclothes  made  its 
appeal  to  him.  She  was  full  of  the  joyful  present 
and  wanted  him  to  forget  everything  else." 

So  Harold  took  her  hands  in  his  and  pressed 
them.  "Listen,  Thora,"  he  said,  "if  you'll  be 
good  and  let  me  go  to  that  meeting  this  evening 
I'll  go  with  you  to  the  Louvre  tomorrow." 

Thora  let  him  go.  Later  she  very  sensibly 
let  him  go  for  good  and  all  and  she  married  the 
Finnish  sculptor  who  estimated  the  Louvre  at 
its  true  value. 


2  so  JOHAN   BOJER 


II 


Later  still  Harold  Mark  returned  to  Norway 
to  practise  medicine  in  Christiania.  He  was  by 
this  time  a  socialist,  and,  sinking  gradually  into 
yet  murkier  depths  of  mentality,  became  at  last 
a  prohibitionist.  He  spoke  at  labor  demonstra- 
tions, wrote  letters  to  the  newspapers  and  (very 
gratifyingly)  was  sued  and  fined  for  his  verbal 
assaults  upon  various  liquor  dealers  in  a  land 
as  yet  unterrorized  by  an  Anti-Saloon  League. 
All  this  was  due  to  Harold's  continuing  to  think 
quite  seriously  about  the  world,  which  seemed 
to  him  in  a  very  bad  way  indeed,  and  eminently 
deserving  of  his  great,  burning  sympathy. 

"I  think,"  he  wrote  his  mother,  "about  every- 
thing and  everybody.  My  mind  enlarges  itself 
so  as  to  embrace  the  whole  world.  Mankind 
becomes  a  seething  ocean  that  rolls  backwards 
and  forwards  through  all  my  being.  I  grow 
dizzy  with  the  feeling  of  infinity.  Millions  of 
cries  for  help  rise  from  the  hopeless  confusion: 
I  see  a  crowd  of  faces  contorted  with  pain:  arms 
are  outstretched  for  help  as  from  millions  in  dan- 
ger of  drowning.  .    .    .  Good  Lord,  mother! 


APPENDIX  251 

If  I  could  only  get  rid  of  this  great,  burning 
sympathy  for  everything  and  everybody!" 

In  fact,  that  does  not  seem  to  be  a  pleasant 
way  of  spending  one's  evenings:  nor,  after  sev- 
eral years  of  thus  enlarging  his  mind  after  sup- 
per, could  Harold  detect  that  his  great,  burning 
sympathy  was  being  of  any  use  to  any  specific 
person.  In  consequence,  at  about  the  time  he  is 
appointed  senior  physician  of  the  seaside  hospi- 
tal at  his  birthplace,  Dr.  Mark  resolves  to  focus 
all  his  great,  burning  sympathy  upon  "one  hu- 
man being  who  is  unhappy";  and  casting  about 
for  a  likely  victim  decides  that  Ivar  Holth,  a 
partly  insane  ex-convict,  has  received  from  the 
town  what  is  vernacularly  describable  as  a  pretty 
raw  deal. 

So  Dr.  Mark  makes  Holth  the  steward  of 
Mark's  hospital,  and  day  after  day,  affords  the 
former  convict  the  full  benefit  of  Harold  Mark's 
companionship  and  great,  burning  sympathy. 

There  may  be  scoffers  to  suggest  that  it  was 
Harold  Mark's  society  which  proved  the  last 
proverbial  straw  to  Holth 's  weak  mind.  At  all 
events  Holth  presently  becomes  violent  and  sets 
fire  to  a  building  which  unpleasantly  reminds 


252  JOHAN   BOJER 

him  of  his  past.  Then  the  fire  spreads,  the 
whole  town  ignites  with  Scandinavian  thorough- 
ness, the  hospital  is  destroyed  and  Harold  Mark 
himself  sustains  severe  bodily  injuries. 


m 

Mentally,  too,  Harold  Mark  is  shaken  as  he 
lies  abed  and  continues  his  serious  thinking. 
"Behold,"  declares  Harold  Mark  in  effect,  "I 
have  tested  man  as  an  individual  and  see  what 
comes  of  it!  I  put  faith  in  my  fellow  creature 
and  he  has  repaid  my  great,  burning  sympathy 
by  burning  down  my  hospital."  To  which,  of 
course,  the  obvious  answer  would  be  that  to 
place  a  mentally  unbalanced  person  in  a  position 
of  grave  responsibility  is  not  a  test  of  anything 
except  the  full  scope  of  your  personal  muddle- 
headedness. 

Even  so,  the  reader  is  delusively  encouraged 
as  Harold  Mark  continues  his  serious  thinking: 
"You  with  the  bleeding  world's  conscience,  you 
stretch  yourself  upon  the  cross  and  suffer  and 
bleed  like  a  fool.  You  help  no  one."  For  the 
reader  begins  to  hope  that  this  Mark  is  on  the 


APPENDIX  253 

verge  of  discovering  at  least  a  fraction  of  the 
truth  about  Harold  Mark,  when,  in  the  nick  of 
need,  the  most  gratifying  uplifting  reflections 
occur  to  the  hurt  dreamer  concerning  "the  great 
dreamers  of  the  past." 

"A  slave  rises  in  Rome  with  a  star  on  his  brow: 
one  of  his  disciples  becomes  emperor  of  the 
world.  In  Judaea  the  son  of  a  carpenter  stands 
with  some  fishermen  round  him  and  takes  water 
out  of  a  well.  Over  the  Italy  of  the  Renaissance 
rises  a  figure  with  a  chisel  in  his  hand;  in  Eng- 
land a  poet  builds  a  world  throne.  They  were 
dreamers  like  you,"  says  Harold  Mark  to  him- 
self with  very  moving  modesty.  "They  were 
dreamers,  and  yet  they  are  the  torch  bearers 
in  the  procession  of  mankind:  and  it  is  owing 
to  them  that  there  is  not  night  over  the  world." 

And  that  makes  him  quite  happy. 

Thus,  finally,  in  wringing  gladness  from  the 
reflection  that,  but  for  the  strivings  of  dead 
dreamers,  things  might,  you  know,  really  have 
been  much  worse  than  they  are,  does  Harold 
Mark  attain  to  tranquil  mental  unison  with  that 
other  eminent  philosopher,  Pollyanna.  And  the 
book  ends  with  the  reader  comprehending  that 


2  54  JOHAN   BOJER 

the  already  devastated  town,  and  all  Norway, 
and  the  face  of  the  world  at  large,  are  doomed 
indefinitely  to  remain  the  objects  of  Dr.  Mark's 
serious  thinking  and  great,  burning  sympathy, 
once  he  is  out  of  bed  again. 


IV 

So  much  for  this  Dr.  Harold  Mark,  whom 
Bojer  has  made  the  pivot  of  a  big  ironic  book, 
very  finely  conceived  and  very  finely  executed.  I 
have  but  outlined,  with,  it  may  be,  improper  lev- 
ity, where  Bojer  meticulously  "renders"  —  with, 
as  I  think,  a  loving  malevolence  —  this  man  of 
average  endowments  who  is  dissatisfied  with  hu- 
man life  as  it  is  now  conducted,  and  as  it  has 
hitherto  been  conducted,  and  who  is  distrustful 
(having  reason)  of  the  circumambient  and  am- 
biguous universe. 

"What  does  it  all  mean,  and  toward  what  is 
this  disastrous  muddle  striving?  —  I  do  not  know. 
What  can  I  do  about  the  incomprehensible  huge 
mess?  Why,  nothing  whatever:  and  indeed  my 
efforts  to  do  anything  about  it  appear  but  to 
augment  the  discomfort  of  my  fellow  animal- 


APPENDIX  255 

culse.  Very  well,  then!  I  will  make  the  hu- 
miliation of  my  position  endurable  by  tipsifying 
myself  with  optimistic  verbiage  and  With  up- 
lifting drivel  about  what  fine  fellows  are,  at  any 
rate,  such  an  elect  minority  among  mankind  as 
Shakespeare  and  Christ  and  myself." 

One  cannot  but  think,  be  it  repeated,  that: 
this  portrait  of  a  philanthropist  has  been  etched 
with  the  acid  of  premeditated  irony:  though  the 
publishers,  to  all  appearance,  would  have  you 
believe  that  Johan  Bojer  portrayed  this  Harold 
Mark  with  tender  seriousness  and  whole-hearted 
admiration  and,  in  a  word,  with  the  indorsement 
of  Bojer's  own  "great,  burning  sympathy." 
One  must  respectfully  question  that.  Yet,  even 
should  the  case  be  such,  the  irony  is  none  the 
less  keen  for  being  two-edged,  nor  is  the  portrait 
rendered  a  whit  less  impressive  by  any  queer 
light  thrown  upon  the  painter.  The  volume  as 
it  stands  may  fairly  be  decreed  a  very  hand- 
some piece  of  irony  either  way. 


TREACHEROUS    GROUND 

BY  CECIL  ROBERTS 

A  Romantic  Realist 

SOME  years  ago  the  first  Bojer  book  found 
its  way  into  my  hands  and  a  review  resulted 
in  a  number  of  inquiries  as  to  who  Johan  Bojer 
was  and  where  he  lived.  It  was  hardly  neces- 
sary to  answer  questions  because  there  have 
been  few  authors  of  whom  one  feels  that  they 
write  themselves  into  their  books  more  than 
Bojer.  You  can  trace  the  intellectual  de- 
velopment of  this  Norwegian  through  intellec- 
tual revolt  to  romantic  realism.  It  is  no  para- 
dox to  declare  that  he  is  a  romantic  realist. 
He  writes  of  men  who  fail  because  they  hold  an 
ideal  and  unlike  most  idealists  they  scorn  propa- 
ganda and  experiment  upon  themselves.  In 
Treacherous  Ground,  as  in  The  Great  Hunger 
or  The  Power  of  a  Lie  we  encounter  a  hero  who 

belittles  himself  and  cultivates  the  luxury  of 

256 


APPENDIX  257 

despair.  Erik  Evje  is  a  socialist  who  does  every- 
thing to  provoke  society  against  him.  He  dis- 
graces a  girl,  fails  in  a  promise  to  a  friend, 
and  is  never  so  contemptible  as  when  filled  with 
contrition.  Faced  by  the  man  he  has  wronged 
he  flies  home  to  the  mother  he  has  neglected 
and  takes  control  of  the  estate.  There  he  re- 
wards the  old  family  laborers  with  plots  of  land 
on  the  heights  of  the  fiord.  His  conscience  is 
eased  by  this  sacrifice  of  his  patrimony  until  a 
candid  friend,  otherwise  an  insincere  enemy, 
warns  him  that  the  whole  settlement  is  threat- 
ened with  a  landslide.  "It  sometimes  happens, 
however,  that  a  man  who  jokes  and  laughs  has 
a  little  sore  place  upon  his  foot,  which  hurts  at 
every  step,  although  he  thinks  about  other  things 
and  walks  as  if  nothing  was  the  matter.  Erik 
Evje  also  had  a  little  sore  place.  It  was  a 
secret  fear  that  in  spite  of  everything,  there  was 
something  wrong  up  at  Newland." 

There  is  no  truth  so  hard  to  run  down  as  an 
unestablished  one.  A  jealous  engineer  predicted 
a  landslide,  Evje,  his  wife  and  his  settlers  can- 
not believe  it  is  true,  because  the  truth  seems 
treacherous  to  the  ideal  of  a  man  who  sought  to 


258  JOHAN   BOJER 

clear  himself  by  self  sacrifice.    This  is  a  theme 
such  as  Bojer  delights  in. 

He  stands  forth  among  novelists  because  he 
champions  the  indifference  of  nature.  An  ideal- 
ist builds  a  hospital  and  puts  in  charge  of  it  an 
ex-convict  who  burns  it  down;  a  dreamer  who 
has  sinned  against  his  fellows  builds  a  new  settle- 
ment and  the  land  slides  away  with  it.  To  the 
Socialist  first  God  is  a  joke,  then  a  joker,  and 
the  man  seeking  to  establish  himself  in  right- 
eousness is  walking  on  treacherous  ground. 
Bojer's  work  is  the  study  of  the  courage  of 
men  to  battle  long  with  life.  Yet  his  work  is 
never  depressing,  his  heroes  have  the  courage  of 
despair  and  the  consistency  of  the  pessimist. 
Life  cheats  them  by  bringing  them  love  where 
they  were  vowed  to  solitude,  success  where  they 
predicted  disaster,  and  hope,  like  a  recurring 
decimal,  pours  through  their  sum  total  of  things. 
There  is  no  Blue  Bird  necromancy  in  Bojer's 
books,  but  he  has  the  genius  to  show  the  ordinary 
man  behaving  in  the  ordinary  way,  yet  fighting 
all  the  world  because  revolt  seizes  upon  the 
third  and  fourth  generation  of  them  that  re- 
form us.    When  all  Evje's  world  tumbles  down 


APPENDIX  259 

in  the  landslide,  when  the  reformer's  dream  is 
shattered,  when  the  little  homes  and  their  domes- 
tic romances  sweep  down  to  death,  it  is  then 
that  Bojer  becomes  lyrical  and  reveals,  through 
a  chapter  of  strong  beauty,  how  one  man,  with 
a  dream  in  his  heart  for  long  years,  suddenly 
finds  release  in  disaster.  Stubborn,  drunken 
Lars,  like  Evje,  attempted  to  retrieve  a  mistake 
and  married  the  woman  he  did  not  love.  He 
toils  on  the  landslide  to  find  the  body  of  the 
woman  he  loves,  lightly  ignoring  the  mother  who 
dies  in  an  heroic  attempt  to  save  her  children. 
A  beast,  he  has  the  faithfulness  of  a  beast,  so 
he  is  happiest  when  he  is  driving  the  body  of 
his  beloved  through  the  snow  to  its  last  sleeping 
place.  Where  most  of  us  would  see  only  the 
cynic,  the  unfaithful  husband,  Bojer  sees  the 
inability  of  the  heart  to  effect  a  compromise. 
It  is  a  lyrical  close  to  a  symphony  of  disaster. 
"He  passed  the  houses  and  entered  a  wood 
white  with  snow,  and  here  the  little  bell  on 
the  horse's  chest  rang  out  clear  and  melodious, 
like  an  old  ballad.  Presently  a  red  full  moon 
peeped  out  above  the  snow-white  mountain  tops, 
reminding  him  of  the  time  when  he  wandered 


260  JOHAN   BOJER 

about  alone  up  there  on  the  pale  moors  as  a  goat- 
herd, and  had  poured  forth  from  his  horn  all  that 
moved  and  sounded  in  his  brain.  And  almost 
unconsciously,  as  he  sat  he  put  it  all  together  — 
the  recollection  of  the  prettiest  voice  in  the 
church,  the  slender  waist,  a  uniform,  of  which 
nothing  would  ever  come  now,  and  the  girl  in 
the  coffin,  perhaps  still  silently  weeping  —  it  all 
seemed  to  grow  together  into  a  long  forgotten 
wordless  song." 

Here  we  see  the  courage  of  a  romantic  realist. 
He  finds  music  in  disaster,  out  of  defeat  sings 
the  human  heart  at  war  with  life.  It  is  this 
courage  to  write  as  life  writes  on  the  human 
mind  which  makes  Bojer  not  only  a  novelist  of 
power  but  a  maker  of  books  that  challenge  the 
intellect. 


THE  END 


WORKS  OF  JOHAN  BOJER 
NOVELS 

Helga  /  ?  ti 

The  Procession  W  u 

The  Eternal  Strife  ^^1 

Mother  Lea  ^0° 

A  Pilgrim's  Way 

The  Prisoner  Who  Sang  \  1  o 

God  and  Woman.    (Dyrendal).   (To  be  published 

in  America  in  1921)    , 
The    Great    Hunger'^1  \Published    in    America, 

January  15,  1919) 
The  Face  of  the  World  (Published  in  America, 

September  10,  1919) 
Treacherous    Ground     (Published   in    America, 

March  5,  1920) 
The   Power  of   a   Lie    (Published   in   America, 

June  10,  1920) 
Life  (To  be  published  in  America,  October  15,1920) 

SHORT  STORIES 

When  the   Cuckoo    Sang   (To  be  published  in 

America,  Fall,  1920) 
The   Fisherman's   Christmas  (To   be   published 

in  America,  Fall,  1920) 
Skobelef  (To  be  published  in  America,  Fall,  1920) 
Fisherman 
Pan 
Old  Tales 

PLAYS 

The  Eyes  of  Love  (To  be  produced  in  New  York, 

Fall,  1920) 
The  Power  of  a  Lie  (To  be  produced  in  New 

York,  Fall,  1920) 
Sigurd  Braa  i4*fc 
A  Mother  f$V-l 
Marie  Walewska 
St.  Olaf  mi 
The  Burial  Mound 
Brutus 
Theodora 
Island  of  the  Dead  fTf* 

FAIRY  TALES 

At  the  Churchyard  Gate  '*  ?  7 
The  Wind  in  the  Reeds   \  <* «  * 
White  Birds  W  <>a 
In  the  Isle  of  Remembrance 
The  Fireweed 

MOFFAT,  YARD  &  COMPANY     :     NEW  YORK 

AUTHOBIZED  REPRESENTATIVES   OF    JOHAN   BOJER    IN   AMERICA 


